SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Cruising and the Caribbean form a marriage of convenience: Fourteen cruise lines take advantage of the islands' palm-tipped shores, quaint colonial towns and balmy trade winds.

The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association said cruise lines and passengers spent about $2.3 billion in the region in 1995, generating more than 48,000 jobs. Wages and salaries came to $700 million.

More than 12 million cruise passenger visits were recorded in the Caribbean in 1998, according to the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization. Passengers spent an estimated $105 million in the Bahamas and $386 million in the U.S. Virgin Islands, it said.

The cruise trip association estimated the business resulted in 1995 expenditures of $302 million for the Bahamas, $301 million for Puerto Rico and $578 million for St. Thomas.

In impoverished Haiti, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines recently invested $10 million in the north-coast village of Labadee, building a school and delivering drinking water. Some 250,000 tourists visited the site last year.

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"It has injected a lot of money — and well-being — into the community," said Alex Lafond, director of the government tourism office in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

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