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National Forum for Tourism Taxi Transportation Sub sector

Contact: Rose Marie Harris

Monday, July 29, 2002 - Paving the way ahead for the island’s Tourism Taxi Transportation sub sector will be the main point for discussion when officials of the Ministry of Tourism and persons involved in the transportation sub sector meet later this week for a national forum for the Tourism Taxi Transportation sub sector.

The Ministry of Tourism and its industry partners have been monitoring the operations of the sector and have developed a draft preliminary proposal geared towards restructuring the tourism transportation sub-sector.

According to Tourism Officer in the Ministry of Tourism, Jacinta Francis, the forum is expected to serve as a medium to review this Draft Proposal. The one day exercise will address key areas of policy formulation to include Licensing of Taxi Incentive Regime and Minimum Standards.

“The purpose of this forum is to review the operation of the sub sector. Over the past two years, the Ministry implemented a pilot phase for the tourism taxi transportation sub sector and as a result of monitoring of this sub sector the Ministry recognise the need to restructure the entire system. There were a number of problems identified in the present system for instance there is a lack of legislation to govern the sub sector as well as the absence of a monitoring mechanism to guide the sub sector. So there is a need for us to restructure the entire sub sector and get our major stakeholders together for their input into the entire restructuring exercise.” Francis said

The forum is targeting operators of taxi islandwide. Key private sector stakeholders such as the Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association, the Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority and selected public sector representatives will also form part of the workshop.

Officials of the Ministry of Tourism believe that the tourism sub sector is a major contributor to the revenue earning capacity of the tourism industry. In 2001, 746,000 persons visited Saint Lucia, injecting over EC$629 million in foreign exchange into the island’s economy, reflected in spending on lodging, food, shopping, transportation including tours and other tourism related services.

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