CTO Secretary General Delivered Keynote Speech in Grenada’s 2006 Tourism Nutmeg Awards

Secretary general of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, has made it known that he wants hoteliers and other tourism stakeholders to make quality service and excellence experience become their guiding principle.

“The most important thing in this industry is the experience, it’s in the product, it involves everything you offer the guests,” he said last week during a keynote address at the 2006 Tourism Nutmeg Awards, which was held at the Grand Beach Convention Center in Grenada.

The former Bahamas tourism minister told the more than 100 stakeholders in the tourism industry that there is nothing called private or public sector tourism. “There is one tourism industry. When tourism fails we don’t say private sector or public sector tourism fails, we say tourism fails and when its good the entire island benefit, so it’s important that all players in the industry to work towards the success of the tourism industry,” he said.

Stressing that there is a need for sustainable quality tourism business; he said that tourism involved every sector in the economy and the experience receive by customers is critical. Sharing personal success stories of quality experience, Vanderpool-Wallace said there investors should continuously make use of modern technology to ensure that the experience is beyond expectation.

The CTO chief said there are many myths about tourism but it’s important for players to dismiss these myths and know the facts. Explaining that tourism contributes deeply towards the development of every economy in the region he said that no industry has the resilient as tourism.

“It’s the most sustainable contributor to every economy in the long term,” he said while advising that persons within the industry must not be afraid to copy successful initiatives, “If it’s working for them, you should make it work better for you,” he said.