Initially, the survey will track hotel performance in Antigua, Barbados, the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and St. Lucia, with a separate report on the all-inclusive sector. The survey has been endorsed and supported by the Antigua Hotels and Tourist Association, the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association, the Barbados Tourism Authority, the Bahamas Hotel Association and the St. Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association.

Timely hotel performance data and the ability to benchmark performance is a long overdue capability missing from the Caribbean hotel market.  An essential management tool for understanding trends and how a market is developing, up-to-date information is also a critical tool for investment and planning for the future.  Arthur Andersen's professionalism and well-executed methodology ensure that this new survey will be of the highest caliber.

Announcing the survey at the 4th Annual Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Investment Conference, Julia Felton, Global Knowledge Manager, Hospitality and Leisure Services, Arthur Andersen, said �We are looking forward to the challenge of delivering to the Caribbean market a useful tool both for management and investors going forward.  There have been several attempts over the years to produce timely performance surveys, which have met with limited success.  We hope that the Caribbean industry is now ready to take advantage of the opportunity to improve the wider market understanding of the environment in which they operate."

The survey will track the hotel industry's leading profit drivers, including market-wide room occupancy, average room rates and rooms yield. 

Launched in 1996, the Arthur Andersen Hotel Industry Benchmark Survey is the definitive source of hotel industry performance data.  The survey contains data from over 3,500 hotels, comprising 560,000 rooms and reports monthly on the performance of over 200 markets across Europe, Middle East, South Africa, and Asia Pacific. Marketshare reports are available to participants in the Arthur Andersen Benchmark Survey.