Nadaleen Singh

Dif­fer­ences in lan­guage and cul­ture can be as­sets to in­creas­ing tourist ar­rivals in the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean (LAC) re­gion, said Julio Oroz­co, di­rec­tor, sus­tain­able tourism, As­so­ci­a­tion of Caribbean States (ACS).He said the re­gion has a "great" in­ter-re­gion­al cul­tur­al base."We have three lan­guages: French, Eng­lish and Span­ish. We have the Caribbean, then Latin Amer­i­ca, al­so from Eu­rope, be­cause we work with the French ter­ri­to­ries," Oroz­co said dur­ing the cof­fee break at the Meet­ing of Re­gion­al Tourism agen­cies, which was held yes­ter­day at the ACS head­quar­ters, Sweet Bri­ar Road, St Clair.

The meet­ing was themed: "Sus­tain­able Tourism: Build­ing Bridges for Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Pro­mot­ing Com­mu­ni­ty-based Tourism for Di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion and Com­pet­i­tive­ness." Ex­plain­ing fur­ther, Oroz­co said dif­fer­ence in lan­guage and cul­ture are as­sets be­cause, "the re­gion be­comes very at­trac­tive when you have so many man­i­fes­ta­tions of cul­ture and lan­guages. That's why we are try­ing to pro­mote this, in or­der for peo­ple to vis­it here to ex­pe­ri­ence it. The dif­fer­ent mix we have in the re­gion, from one coun­try to an­oth­er, or from one sub-re­gion to an­oth­er."

His com­ment comes ahead of a sum­mit to be held in Ha­vana, Cu­ba, in Jan­u­ary 2015. Sus­tain­able tourism, he said, means the gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tors from each coun­try pro­tect­ing its re­sources, in­clud­ing its cul­tur­al her­itage as well as its flo­ra and fau­na. Oroz­co said the aim is to pro­mote mul­ti-des­ti­na­tion trav­el in the re­gion.And as the Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent Bar­rack Oba­ma take steps to re­form im­mi­gra­tion laws in the US, talks are on­go­ing in the LAC re­gion to im­prove the im­mi­gra­tion laws, said Car­men Gil Er­a­zo, rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean States (CELAC)."Re­cent­ly, we had a meet­ing with this is­sue in mind. What we seek to do is to find means to reg­u­late this and to con­trol it. It is a com­plexed is­sue and re­quires con­sen­sus from mem­ber states. There are oth­er as­pects (of im­mi­gra­tion) that are still be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed."

While coun­tries in the LAC re­gion con­tin­ue to strug­gle with drug trade, Gil Er­a­zo con­firmed there was an agree­ment yet to be rat­i­fied by all LAC mem­ber states."There is an agree­ment that has been put on the ta­ble for the il­lic­it traf­fick­ing of psy­chotrop­ic sub­stances. Some coun­tries have signed on to this. We hope that oth­ers will al­so rat­i­fy it, so that this agree­ment will en­ter in­to force. The idea is that we all re­spect the in­ter­nal process­es of each of the coun­tries and this is an is­sue which re­quires some pa­tience."Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Unit­ed Na­tions World Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Cen­tral Amer­i­can Tourism In­te­gra­tion Sec­re­tari­at, the Re­pub­lic of Nicaragua, Suri­name and Ar­genti­na were in at­ten­dance.