Geoffrey Lipman, the Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization (WTO), said that tourism should be the leading issue for Caribbean states in trade and development strategies. Lipman was making a keynote address to the CMEx (Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism), an event that was organized by Counterpart International in collaboration with the Caribbean Hotel Association. Lipman mentioned that it was only in December 2003 that the WTO was raised in rank to become a specialized agency of the United Nations, thus enabling the world tourism sector to grab a share of UN funding. Lipman urged the Caribbean region to be more proactive in pushing for its share of the funds that will become available for research and projects in tourism, as African and Asian countries will also be staking their claims on the available funds.
Speaking to the Caribbean, European and North American media and tourism industry leaders gathered in St. Lucia, Lipman contrasted the worldwide fall in basic commodity prices over the past three decades and the reduction in trade preferences with the sustained growth of tourism services and increasing developing state participation in this sector. He urged countries to support the work performed regarding the Travel Satellite Account, so that the new statistics may decipher the real importance of tourism in each economy.
He said the world economy needs a successful Doha Development Round and tourism should be an important part of the final package, with balanced and structured liberalization to help develop the export economies of the world’s poorest countries. He explained that ?in 18 months? time, when the big countries are all sitting around the table for the Doha Agenda discussions, and newspapers are saying there will not be an agreement because rich countries will not give in on agriculture, Caribbean countries can push for putting tourism in the basket, requesting technology and capacity support and balances in the leakages to tour operators. ?You can make a huge difference to the sector, so, at the end, trade negotiators are doing something,? he said. For more information, see http://www.counterpart.org