CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – The Organisation of Japanese Caribbean States (OECS) Fee says it’s planning a regional session for the primary quarter of this yr to form the tenets of the OECS Sustainable Tourism Coverage.
The Fee says it would make the most of sturdy coverage growth to generate efficient programmatic implementation and that the ultimate coverage will information the OECS Fee’s tourism work for the good thing about all its particularly Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.
The Fee mentioned that it’s making optimistic strides in working with the member international locations on growing the brand new, extra related, sustainable OECS Tourism Coverage and that ministers of tourism from the sub-region have agreed that efficient stakeholder engagement needs to be a essential part of the work.
“As such, the OECS Fee carried out a sturdy and intensive consultative strategy of focus teams and one-to-one interviews. Up to now, missions have been accomplished in all of the OECS protocol member states with the British and French Abroad Territories anticipated to be accomplished by the tip of January 2024,” the Fee mentioned, including that the general aim of the on-site missions is to establish precedence coverage areas for tourism growth within the OECS area.
“We’ve got all the time advocated that we should have interaction at a nationwide stage to grasp the wants of our member states earlier than prioritizing regional actions. It will be important that we hearken to what tourism practitioners within the nation should say to find out the widespread tourism priorities that may be integrated right into a regional coverage,” mentioned OECS Director Basic Dr. Didacus Jules.
“If we would like better neighborhood participation in tourism and elevated advantages to our communities and international locations, we should search the enter of the widest cross-section of business members, each in the private and non-private sectors, in addition to those that could also be impacted by tourism,” he added.
The Fee mentioned that the success of those consultations is attributable to the collaboration with the ministries of tourism and the help and enthusiasm acquired from the OECS international locations.
“The Fee acknowledges that constructing stable partnerships is vital for a profitable final result for the OECS Sustainable Tourism Coverage. Typically, the discussions have centered on the significance positioned on tourism, precedence areas of focus, and measures and actions wanted to advance precedence areas.”
The Fee mentioned the evaluation contains figuring out gaps and alternatives in new areas such because the blue financial system. Along with the overriding recognition of the significance of the tourism sector to the OECS economies, from the enter up to now, the brand new OECS Sustainable Tourism Coverage should tackle areas equivalent to local weather motion, disaster and catastrophe resilience, and consideration of the UN Sustainable Growth Objectives and the 2030 Agenda (SDG).
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