Michelle Loubon

There is no safe place in the world.That was the re­sponse yes­ter­day from Car­los Vo­gel­er, re­gion­al di­rec­tor for the Amer­i­c­as, World Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WTO) in re­sponse to ques­tions about the dou­ble bomb­ing at the Boston marathon and re­ports that 50 tourists aboard a bus were robbed in St Lu­cia.

"I think we need to be con­scious there is no safe place in the world. It could have hap­pened in Madrid. There is no safe place," said Vo­gel­er.He was one of the speak­ers at the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Con­fer­ence at Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.Its theme is Keep­ing the Right Bal­ance: En­hanc­ing Des­ti­na­tion Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Through Prod­ucts, Part­ner­ships and Prof­itabil­i­ty. Tourism Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz al­so at­tend­ed.

"No place should be la­belled as high risk. Most of the places are safe. No­body can pre­dict this would hap­pen. You can­not say I am stay­ing at home be­cause it is safe. Some­thing could hap­pen at home. It could hap­pen in Japan," he said.Born in Venezuela, Vo­gel­er lives in Madrid, Spain. He was chair­man of the Af­fil­i­ate Mem­bers of the World Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion from 2005 to 2008 and a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ex­perts in Tourism.