Raphael John-Lall

Al­fon­so Munera, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS), said tourism is cru­cial for the economies of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean."Tourism is im­por­tant for the en­tire re­gion. Fif­teen per cent of the Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) of the re­gion is de­rived from tourism, 12 per cent of the jobs in the re­gion are as­so­ci­at­ed with tourism," he said.He was speak­ing yes­ter­day on the open­ing day of the 12th Spe­cial Com­mit­tee on Sus­tain­able Tourism, ACS, Sweet Bri­ar Road, St Clair.

For tourism to de­vel­op re­gion­al­ly he said the air and wa­ter routes must be con­nect­ed."We can not de­vel­op tourism if there is no con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion. Con­nec­tiv­i­ty by air and mar­itime routes al­so de­vel­ops the econ­o­my. Right now the glob­al mo­nop­o­lies con­trol the lines of con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion and it is not easy to move from one coun­try to a next," he said.Ju­liana Boodram, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Tourism who al­so spoke at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, said tourism can help di­ver­si­fy the re­gion's economies.

"Tourism is im­por­tant for eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion. Tourism can be used as a tool for pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion which is an im­por­tant goal in all coun­tries. It is al­so a means of achiev­ing bal­anced and sus­tain­able growth," she said.She said re­gion­al coun­tries must take note of how oth­er coun­tries are fo­cus­ing on tourism in their economies.

"As we pro­mote long-term growth for sus­tain­abil­i­ty, we re­call that last year the world reached that land­mark of one bil­lion vis­i­tors. All over the world tourism is grow­ing. We see are see­ing from US Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to Mid­dle East­ern lead­ers to all over the world that na­tions are com­ing to terms with the ben­e­fit of tourism and every sin­gle coun­try is push­ing and grow­ing tourism," she said.She al­so called for coun­tries to share their ex­pe­ri­ences.

"In this hemi­sphere we have prob­a­blly seen one of the greater in­creas­es world wide. There are coun­tries like Cos­ta Ri­ca, Cu­ba and oth­ers. These coun­tries have much to teach us in terms of vis­i­tor ar­rivals. Al­though we see eco­nom­ic down­turns glob­al­ly, tourism has con­tin­ued to grow in some ar­eas," she said.