The Tourism Advisory Committee is a multi-stakeholder advisory group, comprising public and private sector representatives, as well as NGOs, with an interest in strengthening Saint Lucia’s tourism sector.

Since its launch last year, the committee has been deliberating the way forward for the development and management of the tourism in Saint Lucia. To this end, a subcommittee was created to devise ways to increase tourist expenditure.

Minister with responsibility for Tourism, Information, Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries, and Chair of the Tourism Advisory Committee, Honorable Dominic Fedee, said: “We want to come up with a comprehensive strategy to improve the revenue situation. What are the little steps that we can take right now to keep improving the destination? The figure from the cruise lines suggests that Saint Lucia is benefiting from a 95 percent disembarkation but the cruise lines are spending less that about 50 percent of their time at the docks. What we want to do is to improve the situation that when 95 percent of the people come off that we give them a lot of things to do, and we give them a lot of things to buy.”

Aviva St Clair, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Department of Tourism, explained that the Tourism Advisory Committee has been working closely with the Soufriere Marine Management Agency and other stakeholders to develop soft skills and technical skills in areas such as sail repair and boat motor repair.

“There’s a lot of potential for the provision of services to yachtsmen, so we’re looking to allow them to leverage those opportunities so that they have the technical knowledge and the expertise, and they can engage in that type of business. We’re also working with the surrounding properties and day boat operators who bring cruise ship passengers there to expand the number areas that can be used by the cruise ship passengers so that other parts of Soufriere can access those economic opportunities.”

The Tourism Advisory Committee met on Jan. 25, at the Orchid Gardens in Union, Castries.