DEVELOPMENT: Combining Beaches and Mayan Ruins

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, May 11 1999 (IPS) - Cuba and Guatemala have agreed to strengthen the integration of each country’s tourist destinations.

“Project Playa-Maya (Beaches-Maya)”, as it is known, came together during the International Tourism Convention held in Havana last week. The project is an attempt to create a coherent and integrated image of the Caribbean as a tourist destination.

“We have a lively culture to offer, as well as colonial cities, which complements the sun and beaches of Cuba,” Roberto Robles, head of the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism, told IPS. He believes the agreement will expand to include other nations in the region.

Some 650,000 tourists visit Guatemala each year, bringing in 400 million US dollars while Cuba receives more than 1,400,000 visitors annually – worth approximately 1,800 million dollars in tourist-related revenues.

Cuban vice-president Carlos Lage says that the incorporation of his country into the Caribbean tourism market will not hurt the development of other countries in the region.

The Playa-Maya Project will favour the union of the two countries as a tourist destination. Cuba and Guatemala will share tourists visiting from Europe and Canada, which is where most of Cuba’s tourists originate, he says.

Experts participating in a seminar held as part of last week’s convention insisted that the Caribbean’s “community of interests” are basic to the consolidation of an effective and lasting regional integration.

They also stressed that the agreement will strengthen sustainable tourism which will generate profits without damaging the environment, a concern shared by the 25 member countries of the Association of Caribbean States (Asociacion de Estados del Caribe – AEC).

At least 10 of the AEC countries depend on tourism. The Grand Caribbean region, also known as the Caribbean Basin, includes the island nations, Central American countries, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, and has a potential market of more than 200 million tourists.

But according to academic studies, poorly planned tourist development in the region has created serious environmental problems, necessitating the urgent implementation of preservation measures.

The Declaration of Santo Domingo signed last April at the conclusion of the second AEC Summit recognised that sustainable tourism is the appropriate response to the challenges posed by integrated tourism in the Caribbean Basin.

Such challenges include creating employment and protecting the environment as well as the region’s heritage and cultural values.

Along with trade and transportation, tourism is one of the major priorities identified by the AEC since the first meeting of the region’s heads of state.

According to the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), in the mid- 1990s, 12 of the 20 principal tourist destinations in the Americas, and 13 of the 20 countries with the highest income from tourism were located in the Caribbean.

At the Santo Domingo Summit, the AEC reaffirmed its decision to create the Caribbean Sustainable Tourism Area in hopes of putting into practice their plans and strategies to increase tourist demand, which in turn would benefit the region.

In addition, the organisation stressed that for the majority of its members, tourism is “a strategic instrument for socio- economic development,” of which co-operation is a “fundamental principle.”

The AEC defined the Caribbean Sustainable Tourism Area as “a cultural, socio-economic, and biologically rich and diverse entity complemented by internationally competitive tourist services.”