Tourism and disaster management stakeholders
across the Caribbean are collaborating to implement the Regional Disaster Risk
Management for Sustainable Tourism in the Caribbean Project by June 2010.
Under the project, a Regional Disaster Risk
Management (DRM) Strategy and Plan of Action for the Tourism Sector will be
developed, through the collective input of regional and national tourism and
disaster management interests.
To this end, a series of one day workshops are
being staged in five pilot territories to bring tourism and disaster management
practitioners together for discussions on the development of the strategy. The
first of these was held at the Hilton Kingston, today (April 6).
Speaking at the opening, Permanent Secretary in
the Ministry of Tourism, Jennifer Griffith noted that tourism was regarded as
vulnerable to natural disasters, but in the same vein, was deemed one of the
most resilient sectors.
"We (in the tourism sector) tend to recover in
a reasonable timeframe after there is any sort of natural disaster. We have the
ability to bounce back. Here we had our recent example of (this in) Hurricane
Dean, and we were forced to bounce back in a relatively short period of time,
and thankfully we were able to," she said.
Director General of the Office of Disaster
Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), Ronald Jackson, who also
addressed the workshop, pointed out that "the region is 65 per cent dependent on
tourism and coastal resources," and described as "unnerving" the fact that the
Caribbean is "highly vulnerable to hurricanes, tropical storms, and the much
talked about tsunamis."
"We note that our tourism product is heavily
concentrated on the coastline and (is) not as diverse as we ought to have it.
Hence, there is really a need for us to look at mainstreaming disaster risk
reduction in the sector. There's a need for us to look at how we will ensure
that the product, which we are so dependent on, remains sustainable and viable,"
Mr. Jackson said.
Participants were also addressed by the
Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) Co-ordinator, Jeremy
Collymore, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Natural Resources
Management Specialist in Jamaica, Edwin Mateo Molina.
The initiative is being spearheaded by CDERA,
with support from the IDB which is funding the project. The Caribbean Tourism
Organization, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Regional Organization for
Standards and Quality (CROSQ), and the University of the West Indies (UWI) are
the other key stakeholders involved in the development of the project.
The strategy will seek to harmonize national
practices to promote region-wide sustainable tourism and foster the transfer of
knowledge, skills and experience on key issues of disaster risk management. It
is expected that the strategy will provide the model for the development of
future national disaster risk management strategies and action plans for the
tourism sector in the Caribbean.
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