With reports showing that the Chinese now rank among the world’s most frequently traveled and biggest spending tourists, the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CT0) has announced a bold new initiative aimed at capturing a lucrative share of that market. Nations throughout the Caribbean have begun teaching parrots the Chinese for such useful phrases as “Polly want a spring roll?”
“This has the potential to be even more successful than our campaign to attract cruise ship visitors,” said a CTO spokesperson during an unveiling ceremony which was marred only slightly when one of the parrots on display performed an act of amputation on the Prime Minister of Barbados, who had been warned not to stick his finger in the cage.
“As studies show, the Chinese far outspend cruise ship visitors,” the spokesperson said, adding that so did parrots, for that matter.
Despite its potential for success, early testing of the program has indicated there are a number of challenges to overcome, mostly relating to cultural misunderstandings.
“The major difficulty,” the spokesperson said, “has been getting the Chinese to accept that the parrots are not being offered as a menu item.”
