The newly elected Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) President, Sanovnik Destang, has underscored the need for better links between tourism and other economic sectors.
Destang, Executive Director of Bay Gardens Resorts in Saint Lucia, listed tourism linkages among three areas he has a passion for and on which the CHTA would continue to focus.
He said the other two are people, whom he described as tourism’s greatest asset, and technology, which Caribbean tourism businesses can use to propel themselves.
Regarding tourism linkages, Destang declared it was more than just a buzzword in the Region.
“it is a matter of our very survival in the Caribbean and if Caribbean entrepreneurs and people on the whole are not able to benefit from tourism, we are not going to sustain it going forward,” the Saint Lucia hotelier said in a video on the CHTA Facebook page.
He explained that he was not unnecessarily trying to add more CHTA committees and task forces.
Nevertheless, Destang felt it was time to have a CHTA linkages task force to focus on better linkages between hospitality and tourism and other sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and entertainment.
He recalled a session on festival tourism last year that proved insightful and showed the importance of tourism’s ‘trickle down’ effect and festival and arts tourism.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the Caribbean Region relies most on global travel and tourism.
The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) reported that Regional tourism grew in 2023 with an estimated 14.3% increase in international stay-over arrivals to the region.
