UB40 back campaign to bring tourists back to Caribbean after hurricane strife

British reggae band Ub40 are backing a campaign to convince tourists to come back to the Caribbean after this year’s (17) devastating hurricane season.
In August and September (17) three major storms ripped through the region devastating popular holiday isles including Barbuda, Saint Martin and the British Virgin Islands.
The Red Red Wine musicians have long been in love with the region and have teamed up with bosses at travel firm Virgin Holidays to promote tourism in the area.
For the campaign UB40 members Ali Campbell, Astro and Mickey Virtue filmed a new video for their 1998 hit Come Back Darling in Barbuda’s neighbouring island Antigua.
Discussing their tourism push, the band told WENN, “We’ve thrown ourselves into recreating the music video to showcase the Caribbean and use the lyrical message to encourage Brits to ‘come back’ to the destination. We hope our partnership with Virgin Holidays will support the local populations, and it’s our wish that the UK will continue ‘coming back’ to the paradise that is the Caribbean.”
Although the vast majority of resorts in the region have now reopened, Virgin Holidays bosses have conducted research and found a third of Brits are less likely to holiday in the Caribbean due to news coverage of the hurricanes.
Hurricane Irma, the strongest storm formed in the Atlantic ocean since 2005, battered Barbuda but largely passed Antigua by.
And the group say everything in the popular vacation spot is back to normal.
“We met lots of local people who rely on the tourism industry for work and income and the message was clear – they are open for business as usual,” they explain.