Raphael John-Lall

T&T and Venezuela's ge­og­ra­phy and shared cul­tur­al ties can be used to en­hance tourism in both coun­tries. That's the be­lief of Ale­jan­dro Flem­ming, Venezuela's Min­is­ter of Tourism. "We are neigh­bours and we share a sim­i­lar ge­og­ra­phy. In Venezuela, we want to re­in­force our re­la­tions with in­sti­tu­tions like the As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS) so that we can have a com­mon plat­form to de­vel­op ar­eas like tourism.

"We can­not com­pete in tourism. We have to com­ple­ment each oth­er in the de­vel­op­ment of this. That's what we said at the ACS. We share cul­tur­al ties. "I was told that in Trinidad they play the cu­a­tro and this comes from Venezuela and we have calip­so dancers in the south part of Venezuela, like in El Callao. The Caribbean Sea can­not sep­a­rate us, but join us," said Flem­ming, in an in­ter­view at the Venezue­lan Em­bassy, Port-of-Spain, on May 25. Last week, Venezuela had par­tic­i­pat­ed in a meet­ing on tourism at the ACS in Trinidad.

Eco-tourism

Ac­cord­ing to Flem­ming, Venezuela is will­ing to share its mod­el of en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly tourism with the Caribbean. "Venezuela is the leader of a com­mit­tee in the ACS re­gard­ing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of tourism. For our coun­try to de­vel­op its tourism, we have to be en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. "For ex­am­ple, we don't want tourism to re­place the ac­tiv­i­ties we have of the peo­ple liv­ing on the Venezue­lan coasts. We don't want this tourism in­dus­try to ex­ploit our peo­ple and con­vert them to slaves. We want the com­mu­ni­ty to be the first ac­tors in the tourism in­dus­try. That is what we came to share at the meet­ing at the ACS."

Ini­tia­tives in Venezuela

Flem­ming gave a num­ber of fa­mous Venezue­lan sites that draw tourists and yet re­mains eco-friend­ly. From the An­des moun­tain chain to the deserts of Fal­con, he said Venezuela has al­ways been a tourist at­trac­tion. "We have mul­ti­ple tourist des­ti­na­tions. We have the An­des re­gion where tourists can see the be­gin­ning of the An­des moun­tains, which is high as 5,007 me­tres. The An­des is a cold area that has the char­ac­ter­is­tics as oth­er ar­eas in South Amer­i­ca. If you go to the north, you will see the city of Fal­con and they have a desert which is sim­i­lar to the African deserts.

"We al­so have a 1,000 kilo­me­tres of coast in the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela has more than 78 small is­lands. In the south, there is the Ama­zon. Next to that is the moun­tains, which are the old­est moun­tains on the plan­et. We al­so have the longest wa­ter­fall on the plan­et, An­gel Wa­ter­fall (in­dige­nous name-Kerepacu­pai Meru). In that area, you will find fau­na and flo­ra which are the old­est in the plan­et. "Close to the At­lantic Ocean, you find one of the biggest deltas in the plan­et, Delta del Orinoco. In Cara­cas, you have tourist at­trac­tions, not on­ly be­cause the na­ture of the city, but for its his­to­ry," he said.

Flem­ming said Venezuela is now col­lect­ing da­ta on its tourist ar­rivals and oth­er tourist-re­lat­ed sta­tis­tics. "Right now we are get­ting to­geth­er the ex­act sta­tis­tics for the num­ber of tourist ar­rivals, but I would say each year, hun­dreds of thou­sands of tourists come to Venezuela main­ly from Eu­rope." Many in­ter­na­tion­al flights es­pe­cial­ly those from Eu­rope con­nect in Venezuela, he said. "At the Si­mon Bo­li­var In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Venezuela, we have air­lines from Eu­rope, like Air France, Iberia from Spain, and TAP from Por­tu­gal. Venezuela is the cen­tre point for all those flights that are go­ing to the rest of South Amer­i­ca. That is ad­van­tage for tourists in Venezuela."

Plans

Flem­ming, who was pre­vi­ous­ly the Venezue­lan Min­is­ter of Eu­ro­pean Af­fairs, said he has a lot of ex­pe­ri­ence in these ar­eas. "We know the things that the Eu­ro­pean tourists like, es­pe­cial­ly the nat­ur­al scenery. We be­lieve we have those things in Venezuela." Flem­ming said they are work­ing on a col­lec­tive plan with oth­er Latin coun­tries where tourists will be able to vis­it one of the mem­ber coun­tries and go on to vis­it an­oth­er of the mem­ber coun­tries. "Right now, we are work­ing on the 'Route of the Lib­er­a­tor,' which in­cludes Ar­genti­na, San Mar­tin, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, Bo­livia, Ecuador, and this will al­low us to en­hance tourism in all those ar­eas," he said. "In terms of avi­a­tion, we have in­fra­struc­ture ready to take care of this. We al­ready have the first flight of Con­vi­asa from Cara­cas to Buenos Aires. We want to make Venezuela a great tourist des­ti­na­tion. This is our new slo­gan in Venezuela, 'To know Venezuela is your des­tiny.'"