All over the Caribbean, we should be seeking to establish “sustainable hotels” and “sustainable tourism industries”.
And – for me – the ideal Caribbean “sustainable hotel” would be one that is:
- Locally owned;
- Employs a large percentage of local workers;
- Is designed in a manner that supports and respects the vernacular architectural style;
- Features local art, craft, and furniture in its furnishings and decorations;
- Sources most of its food inputs from the local farming community;
- Provides employment for local artistes and entertainers;
- Features and develops the national cuisine;
- Utilizes solar and photovoltaic energy sources;
- Facilitates commercial participation by local taxi drivers, craft sellers and beach vendors;
- Conserves the local water supply by catching and using the hotel’s run-off rainwater;
- Refrains from encroaching on the beach;
- Encourages its guests to experience the entire country; and
- Develops a constructive relationship with the residents of the surrounding or adjacent community.
Such a “sustainable hotel” would be a real blessing to any Caribbean country in which it is located, for it would be a genuine instrument of national development – creating backward and forward linkages with other sectors of the national economy, generating income and career opportunities for citizens, and contributing to the consolidation of the national identity and culture.
It would be interesting to see the results if our Caribbean Ministries of Tourism were to undertake studies of our hotels, with a view to determining to what extent they exhibit the features of the ideal sustainable hotel. Indeed, I wonder how many of our hotels would be able to boast of even 50 percent of the abovementioned “sustainable hotel” indicators?
Needless to say, such “sustainable hotels” are, in turn, the cornerstones of a “sustainable tourism industry”: one in which the entire nation – its landscape, history, heritage, arts and culture – is seen as the tourism product, and not merely the traditional Caribbean sea and sun.
Clearly, a Caribbean “sustainable tourism industry” would be centred around an appreciation of the particular nation’s unique cultural heritage, and around hotels and other tourist facilities that reflect the unique culture, personality, and sense of hospitality of the national population.
Of course, other relevant factors would be :
* the maintenance of a secure and relatively crime-free environment;
* the construction of hurricane-resilient facilities;
* the provision of a high standard of public utilities, inclusive of good quality potable water;
* an efficient solid waste management system; and
* a rigorous and effective system of beach and other environmental protection, conservation and management.
In this relatively enlightened era in which nations and peoples all over the world are waking up to the absolute necessity of pursuing sustainable lifestyles and forms of national development – an era in which the United Nations has enunciated the “2030 Sustainable Development Goals” as the model to be pursued and our own Association of Caribbean States is championing the concept of “Sustainable Tourism” – it would do us well to spend some time reflecting on and developing the concept of a “Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean”.
David A. Comissiong
Barbados’ Ambassador to CARICOM and the Association of Caribbean States
