A HEALTHIER, SAFER, & MORE SECURE TOURISM EXPERIENCE FOR ALL

05 Mar, 2019

A HEALTHIER, SAFER, & MORE SECURE TOURISM EXPERIENCE FOR ALL

The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) is always looking for additional initiatives to bring more to our Caribbean region and more specifically to enhance the tourism growth for each destination. The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), is a public health agency established in 2011, which brings together public health agencies on issues requiring a regional response. These include emergency responses to disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding) and the surveillance and management of diseases. Information and technical assistance are available to support the region. As part of a joint partnership with CHTA and the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), CARPHA has developed a Regional Tourism and Health Programme (THP) which was established to address health, safety and environmental (HSE) threats impacting tourism over several destinations. This program’s sole focus is to improve the safety, security and overall health for visitors of the region as well as residents and thereby contributing to enhancing the quality, competitiveness, reputation, resilience and sustainability of Caribbean tourism.

The program includes several benefits that can be identified below:

Safer, healthier, better quality tourism product and destination
Enhanced capacity in food safety, health & environment sanitation
Industry-wide, real-time tourism early warning and response surveillance system to avoid and reduce illness spread and negative publicity.
Increase in the reputation, comparative advantage, hence marketability of Caribbean tourism.

The THP addresses these threats impacting sustainable tourism in the Caribbean through an integrated approach of combining:

Surveillance: web-based real time tourism surveillance system for early alters and response to negative effects thru the Regional Tourism Health Information, Surveillance, Monitoring and Response system (THMRS) which includes regional protocol/guidelines for managing illnesses in tourism for stay-over and cruise ship arrivals for standardized response.
Capacity building: certification crucial for promoting a healthier, safer and better-quality tourism product.
Standards: updating and developing regional standards to meet current international HSE tourism standards.
Healthy workforce: trainings to support prevention, appropriate response and mitigation of illnesses and outbreaks.

The THP now has over 200 hotels that have signed up to be able to have this accessible for their customers and to have a better quality of health for their staff. If you’d like to partake in THP or find out more information contact a team member at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association.