OECS Ministers of Tourism consider a one-space approach to marketing

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 – The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat is putting plans in place to fully market the sub-region as one tourism product.

This follows the 9^th Annual OECS Tourism Ministers Council Meeting held last week in Saint Lucia.

Saint Kitts Minister for Tourism, Civil Aviation and Maritime Affairs, Honourable Ricky Skerrit—who served as chairperson of last week’s proceedings—said his regional counterparts posited a number of project proposals that are expected to augment the performance of the OECS member-states tourism product in the international arena.

“These priority interventions include the development of a common tourism policy and a regional action plan that will assist member states to concretize and formalize policies for different sectors and sub-sectors in the tourism industry. The project will also establish greater modalities for greater community participation.”

Minister Skerrit says these initiatives are timely as the sub-regional economies contracted by over 7% last year, as a result of the downturn in visitor arrivals to the islands.

The overarching plan, he explains, is for OECS member-states engaged in joint-marketing to ensure that the unique attribute of each destination is showcased, hence strengthening the OECS tourism impact in the marketplace.

“The meeting also looked at funding for tourism marketing. This has been an ongoing concern at the wider regional level and the OECS tourism ministers mandated by the OECS Heads of Government are working towards strengthening the ways we fund our own marketing, ways that we could have a sustainable supply of funding for tourism marketing, and have some funds available to contribute to regional marketing.”

The OECS Secretariat is mandated to provide technical assistance to member states as they pursue the establishment of a marketing and branding strategy.

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