OAS AND CABLE AND WIRELESS TEAM UP TO HELP
The Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) and telecommunications group Cable and Wireless are set to sign a Cooperation Program in Barbados on Friday, April 14, to assist small Caribbean hotels in using technology to boost their competitive edge.
OAS Assistant Secretary General, Trinidad and Tobago-born Ambassador Christopher R. Thomas, and Cable and Wireless Area Director for Barbados and the Windward Islands, Trevor Clarke, will sign off on the pact at the Grand Barbados Hotel during a meeting of small hotels coordinators linked to the OAS’ Caribbean Competitiveness and Sustainability Project (CTCS). The new Cooperation Program involves technology assistance to small tourism properties.
The OAS, through its Netcorps Program, has deployed volunteers to help property owners to better use computer technology to boost business. By year-end the OAS Netcorps Program, which began last summer, will have delivered over 550 weeks of assistance.
Cable and Wireless shares the OAS vision of assisting small hoteliers with technology. Under the OAS Program, the telecommunications provider will make internet services available at discount rates to the CTCS technology walk-in centers and to small participating hotels.
The Program will commence in eight OAS Caribbean countries served by Cable and Wireless—Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago. The two organizations will also explore ways to extend the Program to countries not served by Cable and Wireless.
OAS project coordinator Dr. George Vincent hails the Cable and Wireless involvement, saying "public/private collaboration of this sort to provide real benefits to the small hotels community is the way of the future."
Cable and Wireless Regional Director for Internet Services, James Corbin, describes the project as "a unique and important new regional approach to helping this sector and is the first to recognize the crucial role the internet will play in a competitive tourism industry in the region."
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