Caribbean resilience playbook lists 12
- Dr Dawkins Brown published Dawgen Global’s “12-Point Caribbean Resilience Playbook” on May 10, turning an eight-part macro series into a board checklist for Caribbean firms. - The playbook says boards should stop fixating on headcount and track output instead — with measures like revenue per FTE, gross margin per labour hour, and 90 days of FX cover. - It matters because Caribbean tourism still looks strong, but margins are getting squeezed by labor shortages, higher costs, and tighter financing.
A Caribbean hotel can post solid occupancy, keep hiring, and still be getting weaker. That is the basic point of Dawgen Global’s new “12-Point Caribbean Resilience Playbook,” published May 10 by Dr Dawkins Brown. The piece takes a pretty calm-looking regional backdrop and says — don’t confuse a good scoreboard with real safety. For hotel groups, resort operators, and other Caribbean firms, the message is that resilience now lives in productivity, financing discipline, and cash buffers, not just topline growth. ### What actually got published? Brown’s article is the closing piece in an eight-part series built around the Inter-American Development Bank’s 2026 Latin American and Caribbean macro report. This final installment turns that macro read into a 12-point operating checklist, grouped under four pillars: capital structure, productivity, talent, and risk readiness. It is written less like a forecast and more like something a board could use in a strategy session for 2026–27. (dawgen.global) ### Why aim this at hotels? Because hospitality is exactly the kind of business that can look healthy while its economics quietly worsen. The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association said in March 2025 that most tourism businesses were profitable and optimistic, but 87% were dealing with rising operating costs, 73% struggled to recruit specialized staff, and one-third still reported a net loss. That is the setup Brown is reacting to — demand can stay strong while labor, debt, and imported-cost pressure erode resilience underneath. (dawgen.global) ### What is the playbook really saying? The core argument is simple: stop using headcount as a proxy for strength. Brown says firms need to manage output per worker and earnings quality instead. In practice, that means treating productivity as the growth engine, not assuming more people automatically means more capacity. The article frames this as a regional problem too, arguing that weak productivity growth is one of the structural constraints behind the Caribbean’s modest medium-term outlook. (caribbeanhotelandtourism.com) ### Why do those metrics matter? Measures like revenue per full-time equivalent and gross margin per labor hour force managers to ask a harder question — is each added labor dollar producing more value? In hotels, that matters a lot because payroll is sticky, service standards are non-negotiable, and rate gains can hide inefficiency for a while. A property can fill rooms and still lose operating leverage if labor hours rise faster than margin. Brown’s framework is basically trying to stop that drift before it becomes a balance-sheet problem. (dawgen.global) ### Why the obsession with buffers? Because the playbook assumes the next shock will travel through financing markets, currencies, and imported costs before it shows up in guest demand. Brown’s broader series argues that global risk-off episodes hit firms through reinforcing balance-sheet channels, and the closing playbook turns that into board discipline — stress tests, treasury modernization, and enough foreign-exchange cover to absorb a short-term squeeze. The idea is not to predict the shock. It is to survive the first 90 days without making panicked decisions. (dawgen.global) ### Why bring up capital structure now? Because the cheap-debt era is over — that line runs through the whole series. Brown argues that the financing mix that worked in 2021 will not work in 2026, which matters for multi-property hotel groups carrying renovation plans, floating-rate debt, or imported capex needs. If refinancing costs stay high, weak operators do not just earn less — they lose room to invest, reprice, and defend service quality. (dawgen.global) ### So what should boards take from it? The practical takeaway is that resilience is no longer a soft concept. Brown turns it into thresholds, sequencing, and governance. Start with the balance sheet. Then measure true labor productivity. Then lock in talent durability and risk readiness. For Caribbean hotel groups especially, the playbook is a reminder that the next two years may reward operators who are boring in the best way — liquid, measured, and brutally clear about what each worker and each dollar of capital is actually producing. (dawgen.global)
