Tourism ministers and representatives of hotel associations attending the First Annual Caribbean Tourism Summit announced that major advances were made on the structural changes that will convert the new Caribbean Tourism Development Company, that merges the Caribbean Tourism Organization (representing Caribbean government tourism departments) and the Caribbean Hotel Association (representing the private tourism sector), into an agile and more efficient organization. Enrique de Marchena, co-chairman for the hotel sector, announced at the closing press conference: “We are creating a new era for the Caribbean, of integration, of unity and the public and private sector working together. It is one Caribbean and one direction. We have challenges ahead, we are working together. If we stick together, we will overcome the challenges.”
Allen Chastanet of St. Lucia, co-chairman for the public sector in CDTC, highlighted that the structural changes included a caucus of ministers that will deal with policy and approving budgets, leaving brand management to professional organization. “We need to agree on policy, but to leave how these decisions will be carried out to each territory”. He forecast that things were now going to happen “at an easier and at a faster pace”.
The key issues tackled at the meeting were destination branding, aviation and other transportation issues, taxes and tourism, the need for a regional marketing campaign, and the satellite accounting system for keeping statistics on tourism activities.
Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, secretary general of CDTC, explained that the new organization will tackle areas of human resources, sustainable development, marketing, information management and research, real estate and tourism development, with separate smaller meetings held with members gathering in different member countries. The recommendations from these meetings would then be brought forward at the annual summit. Vanderpool-Wallace said they would come up with a program to show the meetings for the next two years, so that everyone can plan their participation two years in advance. A second ACTS summit is likely to be held in Washington, D.C. in 2009.
“Furthermore, there would be sub-committees gathering the Dutch, French, English and Spanish Caribbean to make sure each has its own groups coming together with their own needs to have a more structured program to come up with a definitive consensus into the future,” said Vanderpool-Wallace.
He commented that during the summit there was a lateral integration of government ministers from other sectors for the first time. Attending the meetings were several central bank governors from the Caribbean, as well as finance and tourism ministers. Vanderpool stressed the importance of opening up, and that the idea was to preach to the different government sectors, instead of “preaching to ourselves”, as has been the case in the past. He suggested holding these summits in each country, covering education, health, agriculture, security and finance.