Promoting Service & Business Excellence in Small Hotels in the Caribbean

Tourism remains a major economic driver in the Caribbean and small local hotels are critical to the sector, providing authentic experiences to visitors and offering essential employment opportunities for the local community. The OAS-SEDI though the Department of Economic and Social Development and its program Tourism Enterprise Network (STEN), is undertaking a series of National Training Workshops for Owners and Operators of Small Hotels in the countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) focusing on Achieving Service and Business Excellence.

The workshops are being organized in collaboration with tourism government authorities and provide opportunities for small hotels to access information on service quality, the culture of hospitality, marketing, and how these elements support improving overall competitiveness. To date, more than 70 hotel owners have participated in trainings in:
- Dominica. April 2-3, in collaboration with the Discover Dominica Authority
- St. Kitts and Nevis. June 5-6, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Tourism within the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) and the St. Kitts and Nevis Hotels and Tourism Association
- St. Vincent and the Grenadines. June 18-19, in collaboration with the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority (SVGTA))
- St. Lucia. June 25-26, in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Heritage and the Creative Industries and the St. Lucia Tourist Board.

Through the series of workshops, participating hotel owners have been trained and empowered to compete in a sector where high quality standards have become the norm. Manager of Paradise Beach Hotel Neroy Sam, a local participant at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines workshop reported to a local newspaper that he learned the importance of creating and setting standards and being consistent with them "I think that participants…learned enough to take back to their properties to improve the standard of their hotel".

The STEN project provides critical training to a largely an underserved sub sector in the Caribbean. OAS Representative to St. Kitts & Nevis, Starrett Greene, noted that “The OAS understands that this subsector is critical for the growth, development and sustainability of small businesses; it knows that small tourism properties are essential in terms of providing employment; and the subsector is indispensable for the viability of the hotel industry in our region”.

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