Corporate News

CTO Launches Online Training and Development Learning Centre

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (6 Dec, 2021) – The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has reached agreement with the Nova Scotia, Canada-based e-learning courseware development company, Velsoft, to further advance the regional tourism development agency’s virtual training programme.

As part of the memorandum of understanding, Velsoft will provide CTO access and hosting to its learning management system and manage the Caribbean Tourism Institute, the CTO’s online campus developed by the Canadian firm.

The new portal is an open online educational, training and development learning centre designed to provide affordable access to training opportunities for everyone who works, or aspires to work, in the Caribbean tourism and hospitality sector.

“Velsoft has been working closely with us to help us realise one of our key human resources development objectives of increasing the access of Caribbean nationals to high quality training and educational opportunities,” said Neil Walters, the CTO’s acting secretary general. “This partnership has allowed us to develop and offer this virtual training hub and will continue to help us in our mission to develop and design relevant e-learning content, which will benefit our tourism and hospitality sector.”

From its inception, the CTO has been a strong proponent of human resources development in the tourism industry and has as one its strategic objectives, to assist its member countries in developing and strengthening their human capital to better enable them to offer high levels of professional service.

The launch of the online training platform and courses is an important step in achieving this objective and to support ongoing training and build regional and institutional capacity.

“What the Caribbean Tourism Institute presents us with is a blended approach to learning, utilising synchronous and asynchronous delivery methods as this online platform will allow for self-paced instruction but will also offer occasions when it will host real-time training and development sessions,” said Sharon Banfield, the CTO’s director of resource mobilisation and development.

As part of the agreement, Velsoft will provide all technologies to convert CTO courses into e-learning and will allow the institute full access to its non-accredited courses, which will be promoted under the institute’s brand.

“Velsoft is excited to partner with the Caribbean Tourism Organization on the ambitious initiative to raise the collective level of skills in the Caribbean’s tourism sector. The Caribbean Tourism Institute represents the easiest and most cost-effective way to provide personalized training that is both culturally and contextually relevant,” said Jim Fitt, chief executive of Velsoft.

“Our intention is to release at least two new online courses each month as a way of ensuring the Caribbean Tourism Institute maintains its commitment to ensuring the latest and most applicable training is made available to the over 2.5 million professionals in the Caribbean’s hospitality and tourism sector, ” he added.

CTO Hosts “Caribbean Comeback” Webinar for Travel Advisers

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (11 Nov. 2021) – Travel advisers who sell the Caribbean will be brought up to date with the latest travel developments in the region when the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) hosts an online educational session next week.

Twenty CTO member countries will share information on the latest protocols, new flights and hotel openings, and other developments.

The webinar is part of a programme of activities by the CTO and its member countries in observance of Caribbean Tourism Month 2021, which has as its theme, Caribbean Comeback.

The theme is meant to emphasise that the region is on its way back from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and is also an invitation to visitors to come back to the Caribbean.

During the month the CTO and its member countries will undertake a social media campaign using the hashtag #CaribbeanComeback and live demonstrations, including a cultural and culinary festival on Wednesday 24 November.

The travel advisers’ webinar begins at 10:00am Eastern time (3:00pm in the UK) on Thursday 18 November. Interested agents can register at https://bit.ly/3FDuCjU.

Introduced in 2011, Caribbean Tourism Month has as its primary objectives the creation of opportunities to raise awareness among the people of the Caribbean as to the importance of tourism to the development of the region; the generation of media coverage of the Caribbean tourism product and each destination’s local tourism product; and the celebration of the diversity of the Caribbean tourism product.

Caribbean Tourism Month 2021 Message from the CTO

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (26 Oct. 2021) – The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) joins our member countries, allied and affiliate members and Caribbean tourism interests in celebrating Caribbean Tourism Month in November, reaffirming our purpose of Leading Sustainable Tourism – One Sea, One Voice, One Caribbean. This year’s theme is, Caribbean Comeback.

It’s a theme that illustrates that as a region, we are on our way back from the devastating impact of the pandemic. Our member countries have worked tirelessly over the past 19 months to adapt to the ever-evolving environment thrust upon us by the pandemic. They have implemented a range of initiatives, and stringent protocols, to ensure post-Covid competitiveness and to rebuild confidence in the sector. One of the very positive signs of recovery, is that as the markets reopen, the region is welcoming an increasing number of flights, including direct service to destinations that are either never had such service before, or have not had direct service for several years.

In the third quarter, some of our member destinations recorded arrival numbers that rivalled, and in some instances, surpassed, the corresponding months in 2019. This by no means suggests that we are back to the pre-pandemic record numbers, and we remain fully aware of how quickly things can change with this virus. But it’s an encouraging sign that the Caribbean comeback is on.

The theme is also an invitation to visitors to come back to the Caribbean. Come back to the Caribbean that you love and are familiar with, to enjoy again everything that first attracted you to our region. Come back for the warm weather, the cuisine, the outdoors, the culture, the sunsets, the adventure. Come back for weddings and honeymoons, for hiking, the beach, the lakes and waterfalls, the flora and fauna and the friendly and welcoming people.

The CTO, in conjunction with our members, has planned a number of social media activities in observance of Caribbean Tourism Month, including a #CaribbeanComeback campaign. We encourage all of you to participate and to share the hashtag as widely as possible.

In addition to all of these enticing attributes which we invite you to come back to enjoy, we also wish to emphasise the Caribbean’s appeal as a region for wellness, healing and rejuvenation. In this regard, we wish to announce that 2022 will be the year of wellness in the Caribbean. As we grapple with the mental and physical toll that COVID-19 has had on us and its effect on our well-being, we offer the Caribbean as the place to come back to for wellness.

Message by Neil Walters, Secretary General (Acting) of the CTO in Observance of World Tourism Day Sept 27, 2021

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (26 Sept 2021_ – The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the region’s tourism development agency, joins the global community in celebrating World Tourism Day 2021 under the theme, Tourism for Inclusive Growth.

In observance of the day, the CTO and approximately a dozen regional and international partners are collaborating on a virtual event aimed at highlighting and addressing the challenges we face in forging a sustainable tourism sector and identifying the opportunities to build a more socially inclusive, sustainable and smart sector.

It’s a clear sign of the importance we all place on collaboration and inclusion, a key plank of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #17, ‘Partnerships for Goals’ which emphasises inclusive partnerships at the global, regional, national and local levels and shared goals placing people and the planet at the centre of development.

World Tourism Day is also being celebrated at a time when the region’s tourism sector is beginning to emerge from the prolonged impact of COVID-19.  Some of our member countries have reported record stayover arrivals during the months of July and August, while others show their arrival numbers trending in the right direction and even approaching 2019 levels. We still have to be aware of the challenges and potential hurdles as we move to a recovery mindset, but these are encouraging signs that the hard work our member countries have put into adapting to the changing environment of the pandemic, is beginning to pay dividends. Our progress amidst the challenges gives hope to the millions of Caribbean nationals who depend on tourism for a living, either directly or indirectly.

In celebrating our incremental successes, this year’s theme is a reminder that, even as arrival numbers rise and tourism revenue increases, we begin to revise our measures of success to include an analysis of the social and economic benefits of the sector. The new tourism approach must ensure that our local communities participate in the renewed tourism economy. Similarly, additional focus must be placed on vulnerable groups, including women, the youth, the disabled and indigenous and marginalized communities, to ensure that they are meaningfully included in the tourism economy.

In its latest Caribbean Quarterly bulletin, the Inter-American Development Bank stated that in 2020, nine of the twelve Caribbean countries it reviewed suffered double-digit shock to real gross domestic product from the pandemic and drew a correlation between these results and the Tourism Dependency Index. These nine countries are in the top 20 most tourism-dependent countries globally.

As we look towards the future, sustainable tourism used as a development tool, at the forefront of the region’s economic recovery, can help to strengthen other sectors against the effects of future shocks. Sustainable tourism is already recognised as a contributor directly or indirectly to most of the UN sustainable development goals, including gender equality, decent work and economic growth.

The CTO has recognised that to achieve these goals, it’s imperative that we forge alliances and partnerships with organisations and institutions that play a meaningful role in contributing to the social and economic development of the region. One such example is our collaboration with the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility (CCPF) which is funding community-based tourism pilot projects using the cluster approach in rural and indigenous areas in three Caribbean countries.

By providing opportunities such as these to vulnerable groups, we enhance the capacity of Caribbean people to play a leading role in their own development. We also demonstrate that in addition to being a primary economic revenue earner for the Caribbean, tourism can be inclusive and by extension promote growth in all of our communities.