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CTO Conference for Saint Lucia
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CTO Conference for Saint Lucia
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Wednesday, July
11, 2001
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Saint Lucia is expecting a major boost for its image as a sustainable tourism
destination, to come from hosting the 5th Annual Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) Sustainable
Tourism Conference in March next year, local planners of the event say. The
March 11-15, 2002 meeting, expected to attract over 200 delegates, will discuss
how Caribbean destinations can design and implement sustainable tourism policies
and programmes. It will also provide a forum for information exchange on the
success and setbacks of national, regional and international initiatives in the
sector. Chairman
of the Conference Planning Committee, Felix Finnestere, said hosting the meeting
will give Saint Lucia an important opportunity to showcase its unique tourism
product and also to reposition itself in
the marketplace as a sustainable tourism destination “Normally
we would have to expend quite a lot of resources to actually get the market
place to understand that we are doing those things, to inform the world that we
have a product that is different. By
having the conference here and using Saint Lucia as a model or case study, it
means that the marketplace is in fact coming to Saint Lucia and experiencing for
themselves exactly what we speaking of,” he said. He
added “We not using brochures, we are not using the website,
we are using the communities in Saint Lucia next year March to bring the
market place and travel industry to Saint Lucia to see for themselves what we
are doing in terms of environmental management systems, minimum standards,
sharing the benefits with local communities and we are already getting much
applause as a destination pointing in the right direction.” The CTO conference will take two months before a World Ecotourism Summit, being convened by the United Nations as part of activities to mark 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism, is held in Quebec, Canada. The CTO conference, therefore, is seen as a preparatory meeting for Caribbean countries taking part in the Quebec summit. “We will have the opportunity to talk about the issues that are related to the development of sustainable development in the region and prepare the Caribbean position that will be taken to the Summit in Quebec,” said CTO Sustainable Tourism Officer, Mercedes Silvar. “It is very important for Saint Lucia to host this meeting and it will be a great opportunity for the Caribbean to talk about those important issues.” |
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