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OAS SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH CARIBBEAN TOURISM INSTITUTIONS

Under a cooperation agreement the Organization of American States (OAS) signed in Washington today with the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA), the hemispheric body will help with training and other key areas to improve the capacity of the Caribbean region’s principal revenue source.

OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza—signing along with the CTO General Secretary Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace and CHA President Berthia Parle—renewed the commitment to help strengthen the subregion’s tourism industry. He cited World Travel and Tourism Council statistics ranking Caribbean travel and tourism as the world’s number one contributor to regional economies, as the industry accounts for some 16.4 percent of GDP and 2.6 million jobs in Caribbean countries overall.

“It’s very important that we continue to work in this area and to help maintain and grow the Caribbean Common market’s share of tourism,” said Insulza, saying the OAS would continue its capacity-building programs and the implementation of policies and strategies “that will support the growth and expansion of the industry.” He said through public and private sector partnerships, “we can better leverage scarce resources and joint knowledge of the development needs of the region to design high-impact tourism programs which can move the Caribbean—and therefore the Americas—into a competitive and sustainable tourism industry.”

The CHA President welcomed the agreement as extremely timely, amid a phenomenal tourism expansion in all the Caribbean countries. She expressed the hope that this cooperative agreement will enable the region to significantly expand training to further develop the necessary skills and the region’s world-class service. Parle said the OAS-facilitated small-hotels project had boosted that segment of the industry, and praised the hemispheric body for its “phenomenal job of helping to take the Caribbean tourism to the next level” of competitiveness. The CHA official also announced that her association is considering the establishment of a tourism investment fund.

Meanwhile, the CTO’s Vanderpool-Wallace thanked the OAS for its growing interest in the region’s tourism, as “the Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent area in the whole world” and therefore “we should be doing tourism better than anybody else.” He hailed the proposed private-public sector cooperation in the development of tourism as one of the most effective means of enhancing the industry.

The OAS Permanent Council Chairman, Ambassador Ellsworth John of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert R. Ramdin; CHA Director-General Alex Sanguinetti; and representatives of the OAS General Secretariat and member states were among those on hand for the signing ceremony.

Reference: E-092/06