Anguilla News covers Anguilla and the wider
Caribbean.
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The Greater
Caribbean Week - Ship Ahoy!
Date Posted: April 07, 2008.
By: Gloria M. de Mees
Several times a year we have the opportunity to witness very
impressive and luxurious Cruise Ships dock at various
Caribbean shores transporting scores of visitors to admire
the beauty of our historical capitals, to taste our
delightful cuisine, and to enjoy the richness of our multi
ethnic societies. They return to their countries of origin
with stories and snapshots of their short lived visit to our
exotic islands and the “acquired treasures” from the hands
of our many talented artists.
For many of the countries of the Greater Caribbean, tourism
is a key sector of the economy, in which Cruise Ship tourism
has carved out a major slice. Data from the Cruise Ship
Industry indicates that the Caribbean continues to be the
highest ranked cruise destination accounting for 46.6 % of
all itineraries.
In 2006 the Greater Caribbean registered seven destinations
with more than a million passengers and three countries with
more than five hundred thousand in visitor count. The Top
Ten Cruise Ship destinations in the region portrayed the
following numbers: The Bahamas topping the list with just
over three million passengers, Cozumel in México placing
second with over two million, and Jamaica and St. Maarten
passing the half a million mark .
Even though the prospects seem promising, there are
challenges appearing on the horizon. Besides the familiar
competitors of the Region, Alaska and the Mediterranean, new
destinations are emerging in the East. From reports, Asia is
set to emerge as the next major growth area. It has been
indicated that Malaysia is keen to persuade international
tourists to explore the beauty of the Malaysian islands and
waters, which they have dubbed the “Caribbean of the East”.
Placing emphasis on enhancing its infrastructure, Singapore
has projected achieving a target of 1.6 million cruise
passengers by 2015.
In order to face these challenges and others, enhancing the
sustainability of cruise ship destinations in the Greater
Caribbean must be considered a primary focus.
In December 2001, the leaders of the Association of
Caribbean States (ACS) signed the Convention establishing
the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean (STZC): “(a)
geographically determined cultural, socio economic and
biologically rich and diverse unit, in which tourism
development will depend on sustainability and the principles
of integration, cooperation and consensus, aimed at
facilitating the integrated development of the Caribbean”.
STZC will provide a new manner in which to view and pursue
sustainable tourism development from a regional perspective
and through the use of sustainability indicators.
Indicators are described by the United Nations World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO) as “measures of existence or severity
of current issues, signals of risk and potential need for
action and the means to identify and measure the results of
our actions”.
In the context of establishing the Zone, the ACS launched
initiatives aiming to provide a practical framework to the
rules governing the identification approval and
categorization of destinations to constitute the STCZ as
indicated in the Convention. A project to further develop
and implement the sustainable tourism indicators identified
in the Convention is in progress, with a First Phase
successfully completed. In this Phase, five pilot
destinations were selected and evaluated in Jamaica,
Dominican Republic, Mexico (Cozumel, a Cruise Ship
destination), Dominica and Panama. Currently, in the Second
phase, seven destinations are under evaluation. After a
process of sustainability assessments and gap analyses using
the mechanism of sustainability indicators, a list of
recommendations and an action plan are prepared for
consideration of the tourism authorities of each of these
destinations.
Individual destinations, in this respect Cruise Ship
destinations as well, are provided the opportunity to
explore and utilize planning tools to develop in a cost
effective manner a more sustainable and thus a competitive
product.
