More ro­bust re­search on mat­ters re­lat­ed to Caribbean tourism de­vel­op­ment is need­ed to dri­ve the in­dus­try for­ward in a way that builds re­silien­cy for fu­ture shocks, says Acol­la Cameron, Dean in Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences and se­nior lec­tur­er in tourism at the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Her com­ments were echoed by Caribbean stake­hold­ers fol­low­ing a sign­ing ear­li­er this month of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) among the UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, the Foun­da­tion for En­vi­ron­men­tal Ed­u­ca­tion (FEE), the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (CHTA), the Caribbean Al­liance for Sus­tain­able Tourism (CAST) and Green T&T. The MoU is for a joint tourism re­search project ti­tled, “Ex­plor­ing the con­tri­bu­tion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to tourism de­vel­op­ment in the Greater Caribbean.”

This re­search will in­ves­ti­gate the con­tri­bu­tion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to Caribbean tourism de­vel­op­ment in a post-pan­dem­ic con­text from both the de­mand and sup­ply side with par­tic­u­lar ref­er­ence to the tourist ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor.

Cameron fur­ther added that for T&T and, more specif­i­cal­ly, To­ba­go, which is ac­tive­ly en­gaged in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al Green Key pro­gramme for its tourism stake­hold­ers, the in­for­ma­tion from this re­search will con­tribute to a toolk­it that can be used by the tourism au­thor­i­ties to con­vince more in­dus­try stake­hold­ers of the im­por­tance of im­ple­ment­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty prac­tices and ac­quir­ing the eco­la­bel.

Ac­cord­ing to Cameron, one of the new fac­tors which has emerged in a post-pan­dem­ic con­text is the height­ened sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­scious­ness among trav­el con­sumers.

She in­di­cat­ed that da­ta from trav­el site book­ing.com re­veal that more than 50 per cent of glob­al trav­el­ers feel bet­ter about en­gag­ing in par­tic­u­lar tourism ex­pe­ri­ences if they know it has a sus­tain­able cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Rough­ly 40 per cent ac­tive­ly look for in­for­ma­tion about the sus­tain­abil­i­ty ef­forts of tourism busi­ness­es be­fore they book.

“In the greater Caribbean con­text, da­ta re­gard­ing the use­ful­ness of sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to tourist ac­com­mo­da­tion providers are not read­i­ly avail­able. Nei­ther is da­ta avail­able on the im­pact of sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions on the qual­i­ty of the vis­i­tor’s ex­pe­ri­ence. These da­ta sets in a post-pan­dem­ic con­text are crit­i­cal for de­ci­sion-mak­ing by tourism op­er­a­tors, des­ti­na­tion plan­ners, pub­lic of­fi­cials, and civ­il so­ci­ety groups, giv­en the need to re­main com­pet­i­tive while max­imis­ing lim­it­ed re­sources,” Cameron fur­ther ex­plained.

Re­gard­ing T&T’s tourism, Ten­isha Brown-Williams, di­rec­tor at Green T&T and UWI tourism re­searcher, said re­search of this na­ture may shift at­ten­tion to im­ple­ment­ing a more sus­tain­able tourism ap­proach.

Specif­i­cal­ly, for Trinidad, she not­ed that with the re­cent re-open­ing of Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre and the po­ten­tial re-po­si­tion­ing of the des­ti­na­tion as an eco-des­ti­na­tion, sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions will be valu­able in con­nect­ing with the grow­ing base of trav­ellers who have been en­larged in their eco-con­scious­ness.

“While the nat­ur­al as­sets of lo­cal sites such as Asa Wright, Ca­roni Bird Sanc­tu­ary, Nar­i­va Swamp etc. will or­gan­i­cal­ly at­tract vis­i­tors, the ex­tra lay­er of an eco­la­bel/sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion will like­ly per­suade con­sumers who are con­cerned about their im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty to choose des­ti­na­tion Trinidad in their pre-book­ing con­sid­er­a­tions,” Brown-Williams ex­plained.

To­ba­go, she not­ed, is al­ready ahead of the game, hav­ing two Green Key-cer­ti­fied ac­com­mo­da­tion fa­cil­i­ties and four Blue Flag boat-tour op­er­a­tors, adding that the is­land is the on­ly des­ti­na­tion in the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean with this many tourism stake­hold­ers hold­ing a sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Brown-Williams, this augers well for To­ba­go as the des­ti­na­tion con­tin­ues strength­en­ing its po­si­tion­ing in the re­gion as nat­u­ral­ly un­spoilt and un­touched.

More­over, im­ple­ment­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions is part of an in­te­grat­ed de­vel­op­ment ap­proach that will yield pos­i­tive re­sults for the des­ti­na­tion over time.

Even so, there are chal­lenges.

Brown-Williams said there’s a need to un­der­stand the im­por­tance of sus­tain­abil­i­ty ac­tions and the fi­nan­cial and non-fi­nan­cial ben­e­fits it brings to those who en­gage in them.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said the re­search is an­tic­i­pat­ed to un­cov­er per­cep­tions, chal­lenges, so­lu­tions and strate­gies to en­gen­der greater sup­port for sus­tain­abil­i­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and, by ex­ten­sion, sus­tain­able tourism de­vel­op­ment.

From a broad­er per­spec­tive, Nicole Mad­den-Greig, pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (CHTA), said that as the is­sues of tourism’s re­silien­cy and the im­pact of cli­mate change and oth­er threats to the tourism in­dus­try and Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tions, be­come even more crit­i­cal to ad­dress, col­lab­o­ra­tions amongst stake­hold­er groups like CHTA/Caribbean Al­liance for Sus­tain­able Tourism (CAST) and the UWI, the Foun­da­tion for En­vi­ron­men­tal Ed­u­ca­tion (FEE) and Green T&T in­crease in their im­por­tance.

“This will help us to bet­ter un­der­stand the in­dus­try’s aware­ness, per­cep­tion and en­gage­ment and will­ing­ness to em­brace and utilise these types of pro­grammes. As our en­vi­ron­ment rapid­ly un­der­goes changes and as the con­scious­ness of the trav­el­ling pub­lic and Caribbean res­i­dents shifts to a realm of greater per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, stan­dards pro­grammes like this ad­vanced by FEE and UWI take on added im­por­tance,” she added.

Daniel Schaf­fer, CEO of FEE al­so echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments that through this co­op­er­a­tion, re­search about sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try can be sup­port­ed as well as pro­mot­ing train­ing for fu­ture em­ploy­ees in the in­dus­try.

“The in­ter­est in sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try is in­creas­ing world­wide. There is a clear ex­pec­ta­tion that ho­tels work­ing with­in the sys­tem of sus­tain­abil­i­ty will have an ad­van­tage with­in the mar­ket­place,” Schaf­fer said.

How­ev­er, he ad­vised there is still a need for more facts and fig­ures about the pos­i­tive ef­fect of en­gag­ing in sus­tain­abil­i­ty, which he not­ed can be mea­sured at dif­fer­ent lev­els.

The re­search, above all, Schaf­fer added will sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of a more sus­tain­able sec­tor for the ben­e­fit of the plan­et and for gen­er­a­tions to come.

FEE is one of the world’s largest en­vi­ron­men­tal ed­u­ca­tion or­gan­i­sa­tions, with over 100 mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tions in 81 coun­tries.

Joan­na Moses-Wothke, CEO of Green T&T al­so shared that there is a need for ap­plied re­search that is in­tel­li­gi­bly com­mu­ni­cat­ed with stake­hold­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in the case of tourism, where far too of­ten the aca­d­e­m­ic realm is some­times dis­con­nect­ed from the day-to-day de­ci­sion-mak­ing process of pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the pri­vate sec­tor.

“This re­search project will sig­nif­i­cant­ly help fi­nan­cial­ly re­strict­ed small busi­ness own­ers make in­formed de­ci­sions about mar­ket­ing strate­gies, sus­tain­able tourism, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and cus­tomer ser­vice. Fur­ther­more, it will as­sist pol­i­cy­mak­ers in their role as fa­cil­i­ta­tors of suc­cess­ful green, blue and pur­ple tourism de­vel­op­ment,” she ad­vised.

Green T&T is a T&T not-for-prof­it en­vi­ron­men­tal civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tion that im­ple­ments sus­tain­able tourism stan­dards and ed­u­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives in T&T and the wider Caribbean.