Caribbean spring 2019 opens with exceptional momentum — Easter tourism records across the region, Barbados one year into its IMF programme with encouraging progress, Guyana’s oil excitement building, and a residential property market buoyed by supportive interest rates and strong demand.

Spring 2019 brings record Caribbean tourism arrivals, strengthening investment sentiment across the region, and mounting excitement over Guyana’s approaching oil era.

Two months after Trinidad Carnival 2019 and as Caribbean spring tourism gets underway, Barbados’s IMF reform programme shows early results after six months in operation. Jamaica’s fiscal improvement continues to drive property market confidence while Guyana’s oil countdown moves ever closer to its defining moment.

Trinidad Carnival 2019 (February 4-5) delivers a strong economic performance as the twin-island republic’s culture economy fires on all cylinders. The Caribbean’s peak winter tourism season reaches its zenith across Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic, while Barbados’s IMF reform narrative gains definition and Guyana’s first-oil countdown intensifies.

Caribbean summer tourism delivers record-breaking results for unaffected islands as post-Irma visitor diversion continues to benefit Jamaica, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic. Barbados PM Mottley’s two-month-old government accelerates IMF discussions while the construction sector booms across reconstruction territories.

July 2018: Caribbean summer tourism recovery gathers pace across unaffected islands, post-Irma reconstruction continues unevenly, Barbados PM Mottley’s economic agenda takes shape, and Guyana’s pre-oil property boom intensifies.

Mia Mottley’s BLP won all 30 seats in Barbados’s 24 May 2018 election — the most decisive electoral result in the island’s history. The new PM brings a bold economic reform agenda. The Caribbean tourism season closes strongly, the 2018 hurricane season opens on 1 June, and nine-month reconstruction updates across Irma and Maria territories.

As Caribbean spring tourism delivers a strong performance across unaffected islands, Barbados stands at a historic political crossroads: a general election must be called within weeks, with PM Freundel Stuart’s DLP facing Mia Mottley’s BLP in what polls suggest will be a decisive contest. Meanwhile, reconstruction across Irma and Maria territories continues.

Four months after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the Caribbean property market enters 2018 in sharply bifurcated condition. Jamaica and Barbados report exceptional winter season performance while the reconstruction territories continue their long recovery. The insurance market is repricing hurricane risk across the entire region.

Caribbean property markets close a strong summer 2017 season with tourism records and investment confidence, even as meteorologists track a potentially catastrophic hurricane approaching the Lesser Antilles. Edition 107 of the Caribbean Property & Investment Review.