Basseterre, St. Kitts (October 28, 2005): Corporate Communications Manager with the Ministry of Tourism, Unoma Allen, says her ministry is poised for the start of the celebration of Tourism Week on Saturday.
Ms Allen said she is looking forward to the week because it is an opportunity to take a sobering look at an issue which the Federation must urgently address. The theme Preparing to Welcome the World emphasizes the fact that the Federation is at a critical point where it has to seriously look at how it has been welcoming the world.
She said a high degree of honesty is required if this assessment will reap rewards including an analysis of visitors likes and dislikes followed by a comparison of what we offer. She added that presently 100, 000 visitors come to our shores per year and that the goal is to dramatically increase that.
Ms Allen emphasized the well-known fact that there is a large number of competing countries for those same tourists.
The corporate communications manager explained that as part of preparing to welcome the world, knowledge is key to success and upgrading that knowledge is key to keeping abreast of competitors. She revealed that this tourism week's training activities demonstrates that, by providing opportunities for industry workers to upgrade their knowledge.
Additionally, partnering Tourism with the Arts and Crafts is another area of emphasis. For this reason Ms Allen said an entire day is going to be devoted to recognizing the role of the Arts in tourism development.
Finally, Ms Allen highlighted the impact of coming out of sugar to the tourism industry which now has to absorb school leavers and former sugar workers. She said that the week would seek to highlight careers in the industry by raising awareness of what jobs are available and inspiring people to be creative in coming up with new ideas for jobs.
Tourism Week runs from October 29th to November 6th.
