Caribbean Tourism Ministers Huddled in Cuba, Called for Sustainable Hospitality Industry

Tourism Ministers from Caribbean nations met last week in Cuba and called for the sustainable development of the leisure industry as a key factor in the need to make economic headway in the region.

Luis Simon, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on Sustainable Tourism of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), held a news conference in Havana’s National Hotel in which he praised the significance of the event.

The gathering in Havana set the stage for the First Meeting of Grand Caribbean Tourism Ministers, a thrfee-day powwow that paved the way for the 16th Meeting of the ACS’s Ad Hoc Committee on Sustainable Tourism.

Among the boldface names that attended the Havana meeting were ACS secretary-general Ruben Sile and Venezuela’s tourism minister Wilmas Castro.

Mr. Simon told members of the press that the meeting came to a close with a final declaration in which member States spell out ways and means to foster sustainable tourism in the Caribbean region.

The document lays out a clear-cut strategy and throws full support behind a plan currently underway that was devised by the ACS’s Ad Hoc Committee, made up of representatives from the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Haiti and the Bahamas.

The declaration lashes out at the United States for its intention to enforce the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) on all airborne passengers beginning January 8, 2007.

Cuba’s tourism minister Manuel Marrero stressed his government’s policy to accept cruise liners on the island nation as long as those companies abide by Cuban legislation on environmental protection.