PRIME Minister Allen Chastanet has promised that legislation will be passed in order to formalise the newly formed Tourism Advisory Committee, which was launched yesterday in the conference room of the St. James Morgan Bay Resort.
“I’m here to say that I fully endorse this Council.” Chastanet stated, before outlining his Government’s intention to formalise the body through legislation.
He added: “This Council is starting off as an advisory Council but the intention is very quickly to be able to pass the legislation in order for this to be a formal body in St. Lucia with the responsibilities we’ve outlined.”
Chastanet then let members of the Committee know, “that at the highest level of Cabinet this is regarded with the greatest level of respect.”
The prime minister also stated that one of the goals of the Tourism Advisory Committee is to increase the general understanding of tourism which “can make a big difference in our country”; something that “no one minister of Tourism can do…”
Also speaking at the Launch were Hon. Dominic Fedee and Aviva St. Clair, respectively the Minister for and the Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting,
Dominic Fedee called the day of the launch “transformative” and “history making”, before stating that “while we are here just to establish a Committee, I think that this is profound in its significance to what it will do for the governance of tourism in St. Lucia.”
According to St. Clair, “the Committee…needs to reflect on that core business [Tourism] and think about how we regard it.” She produced some statistics demonstrating the massive impact that tourism has all over the world.
Citing the assessment of the economic impact of tourism by the World Travelling Council in 2018, St. Clair stated that “One in every ten jobs on the planet [is] in the travel and tourism industry. And in the past ten years one in every five jobs created globally have been created in the travel and tourism industry. And the third fact is that the travel and tourism industry has experienced in 2018 the 7th consecutive year of growth.”
A Government Information Service release stated that the Council will facilitate partnerships among the public and private sector, and seek to resolve long standing bottle necks which impede product development and enhancement, while generating consensus on the way forward for the development and management of the tourism sector in Saint Lucia.”
The press release also stated that “the Tourism Advisory Committee, is a multi-stakeholder advisory grouping and comprises both public and private representatives with an interest in bolstering tourism development and management.”
