Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett yesterday chaired a successful global tourism summit with St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and global tourism partners to discuss recovery efforts for the island.

“The bringing together of global tourism leaders was critical in providing a platform to generate support for St Vincent and the Grenadines which is in dire need of help following the recent volcanic eruption.

From a tourism standpoint, the latest development will obviously set back the recovery of the tourism and travel sector in St Vincent and the Grenadines and other affected countries including the heavily tourism-dependent Barbados indefinitely,” said Bartlett.

HIGH-LEVEL TOURISM STAKEHOLDERS AT MEETING

The meeting included several members of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and Organization of American States (OAS), regional Ministers of Tourism as well as over 150 high level tourism stakeholders.

Gonsalves expressed his appreciation for the outpouring of support and gave an update of the areas being affected by the volcanic ash.

“Together we must strategise the way forward for the quick recovery of SVG and all other Caribbean countries being impacted. This is imperative given the fact that this environmental crisis is likely to make matters worse for the small, undiversified affected economies that have been facing over a year of steep and historic decline in tourism revenues,” said Bartlett.

The La Soufriere volcano in SVG erupted earlier this week with an enormous amount of ash and hot gas. Reports are that explosions and accompanying ashfall, of similar or larger magnitude, are likely to continue to occur over the next few days.

It is all hands-on deck and the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) will also be helping to mobilise the support for SVG’s tourism recovery.

“One of the objectives of the GTRCMC is to act as a Crisis Management Intermediary (CMI) – We act as the middle-person between diverse parties. In other words, we bring together destinations in crisis and the support mechanisms, tools, people, and strategy that is needed to recover from, survive or thrive from a crisis.

“In this regard, our role is all-encompassing and can involve anything from negotiating contracts, identifying support, providing technical support, or providing information to all parties about the status of destinations or other factors which threaten or can transform the tourism ecosystem,” said Professor Lloyd Waller, executive director of the GTRCMC.

“We will be convening a follow up meeting to get the full list of needs and finalise the strategy, which will be led by the GTRCMC,” added Bartlett.