Tourism Stakeholders Urged to Understand Individuality of Destinations

St. Lucia Minister of Tourism and Aviation and Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Allen Chastanet has urged regional tourism stakeholders to be understanding of the programs and needs of the individual territories.

“While we move in this regional direction, we will continue to recognize the individuality of each of our destinations and the vast differences in the region which include culture, cuisine and languages based on our French, Spanish, Dutch and English languages.

“We are currently enjoying a heightened awareness by CARICOM and the heads of governments have declared that tourism is crucial to the economies of the Caribbean and will be a permanent agenda item for all future meetings of the heads of government. In addition, CARICOM heads of government will devote one full day for tourism issues at their upcoming July meeting in Antigua,” he said.

“We are encouraged by the attention that tourism is getting and we now need to focus on sustainability to ensure that our tourism product is financially viable, environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable in our respective nations. Then we need to focus on the Caribbean brand to connote the best in tourism,” Mr. Chastanet added.

Minister Chastanet was speaking at the Caribbean Hotels and Tourism Investment Conference (CHTIC) taking place in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

Chastanet said the participants have come together at a time “when all of our organizations are going through fundamental changes in order to maintain relevance in today’s global tourism community. As a result of these changes we are experiencing a strengthening of the public and private sector relationships on both a regional level and within our individual communities.”