Seleni Matus, Director of Tourism of Belize, Gets New Role as Promoter of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council at CTO

Seleni Matus, Director of Tourism of Belize, Gets New Role as Promoter of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council at CTO

By Yndiana Montes

The subject of partnership and how to forge relationships that benefit all sides took center stage at the 12th Annual Caribbean Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development (STC-12) at the Fairmont Southampton here in Bermuda.

The panel’s first presenter, Seleni Matus, Director of Tourism for Belize discussed efforts to create a global standard for sustainable tourism. With more than 900 million international tourists having travelled in 2010, there is an urgent need to consider sustainability – and standardize its evaluation, she said, because consumers are confused.

“Even our industry has trouble defining sustainability,” said Ms. Matus. "There is an opportunity," she said, "to define the change needed by defining guidelines and embedding them at a country and company level."

To this point, Ms.Matus said she was actively involved in the Global Sustainable Tourism Council – an international council with 76 founding members. This council developed criteria for sustainable tourism – a process that took more than 18 months and involved the input of 2,000 experts worldwide.

Belize is a good example of sustainability, and we interviewed Seleni Matus, who has a great experience about the topic. There is confussion about what is sustainable tourism, and this initiative of Seleni of promoting it at CTO's members countries will be very positive for the region.