Tourism Minister, Dominic Fedee has said that the last figures received from the Saint Lucia Tourist Board indicate that there is an overall decline of 11.7 percent in the Industry.
Fedee deemed the statistics very worrisome. He asserted that the cruise arrivals paint an even more “frightening” picture. According to the minister, the cruise numbers have not improved from their earlier signs of dwindling.
“The cruise arrivals are coming in at a decline of 16.2 percent when compared to last year. He said that the numbers from stay over arrivals were also not so encouraging – a slight decline of 1.1 percent.
Fedee noted that the state of the tourism industry could be attributed to the fact that the tourism industry development act of 1982, which governs the structure of the Saint Lucia Tourist Board, has gone through little amendment and restructuring.
He explained that tourism has to grow by ten percent for the next seven to eight years if it is to be claimed that the sector is the driving force of the economy to help Saint Lucia out of the current crisis.
According to Fedee, although the times were tough, it was not a time to be daunted by the challenges but to summon a new spirit of working together.
Leave a Reply