CTO and the EU Join Efforts to Advance Tourism

The European Commission has allocated eight million euros to fund their sustainable tourism development program. Of those eight million euros, 3.374 million euros have been allocated to the Caribbean Tourisms Organization to implement some of those programs. This amount is broken down into four major projects.

The first is a research project aimed at strengthening our capacity and implementing research projects that will benefit our member countries. Under that program we will seek and identify those areas we need to do further research in.

We need to look more seriously at the impact that cruise tourism has on the Caribbean and how we can stimulate the positive aspects of that impact in terms of tourist spending, in terms of cruise passengers, and how we can mitigate any of the negative impacts that could be there as a result of larger and larger boats passing through our waters on an annual basis, a CTO statement reads.

In support of the research program, the second project is one of information technology where, once again, the European Commission is going to support the enhancement of our information technology unit at the centre and in our overseas offices.

The third project is one of sustainable tourism development. It will assist CTO in producing more material and do more research in the area of sustainable tourism development.

The final project is human resource development. Some 1.1 million euros have been allocated to create training materials to assist CTO in enhancing the skills of the players in the hospitality industry.

The program will be delivered in close consultation with the Caribbean Hotel Association.