CTO to Release Disaster Risk Management Handbook
The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the region’s tourism development agency, is soon to publish a disaster risk management (DRM) guide for the region’s tourism sector as part of its objective to foster a culture of preparedness in destination management.
The publication, which targets tourism businesses and policymakers, will help guide the tourism sector’s preparedness, response and recovery from the multiplicity of hazards that impact and/or potentially threaten the region.
The manual will provide guidelines for climate change mitigation and adaptation, showcase regional and international best practices in comprehensive disaster management, and present strategies for effective response protocols before, during and after a disaster.
The handbook, which is expected to be finalized next month and launched early 2019, is one component of the ongoing project, “Supporting a Climate Smart and Sustainable Caribbean Tourism Industry (CSSCTI)”.
This project includes a series of training workshops in disaster risk management and climate resilience, aimed as sharing knowledge and best practices on strategies related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as identifying sound DRM approaches, to enhance tourism sector preparedness, response and resilience to climate-related hazards.
A team of consultants from the University of Technology of Jamaica (UTech) has been engaged by the CTO to produce the ‘Disaster Risk Management Guide for the Caribbean Tourism Sector: A Practical Handbook for Tourism Business and Policymakers’, and to facilitate the workshops - two days of training on DRM followed by a one-day training program for trainers to help build local capacity.
The target audiences are tourism practitioners and decision-makers from the public and private sectors, and representatives from key ancillary sectors such as air and sea port authorities and disaster management agencies who play a key role in tourism disaster management.
In this first phase, five countries: The Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Haiti and Jamaica are benefiting from this training, with workshops having already been held in the Bahamas, Belize Haiti and Jamaica, while the workshop for Dominica will be held in the coming weeks.
The CSSCTI project is funded by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) through resources allocated under the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)- European Union (EU)- CDB Natural Disaster Risk Management (NDRM) in CARIFORUM countries program.
Other activities of the CSSCTI project include updating the Caribbean Sustainable Tourism Policy Framework and producing a compendium of Best Practices in Sustainable Tourism; an ongoing regional tourism education and awareness campaign delivered through social media and a televised video series; and a feasibility study to inform the needs related to climate services in tourism.
In addition, a regional workshop was held last month, which brought together hotel and tourism association executives and officials from ministries of tourism and tourism authorities from CTO member countries.
The workshop facilitated the review and validation of the disaster risk management guide, the updated Caribbean sustainable tourism policy framework and other project related manuals, by the tourism sector decision-makers, which aimed to obtain their input, enhance awareness and foster utilization of the updated manuals. The project is expected to be concluded by mid-2019.
