Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation, the Hon. Chester Cooper addressed the United Nations General Assembly this week as it focuses on sustainability.
In his remarks Cooper spoke about the travel advisories recently issued by the United States and Canada on The Bahamas. He said, “as a destination we live and breath by our reputation, therefore it is critical to highlight that travel advisories issued by large nations about The Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations have the potential to do incredible harm to our economies and disrupt our sustainability efforts. We believe the release of these advisories without context is unfair and portrays a sensational narrative that we must expend scarce resources to correct.”
The Deputy Prime Minister added, “additionally we have attracted more than $10 billion dollars in balance tourist investments to The Bahamas in the past three years alone building connectivity with airport and seaport infrastructure, resorts and the massive integration of renewable energy. We are scaling our approach through a destination stewardship program designed in collaboration with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. Notwithstanding, it is important to point out that the existing, punishing, one size fits all rules and adverse listing from global economic organizations we are not a part of and we had not hand in creating make it all the more difficult to attract the foreign direct investments small island developing states critically need.”
United Nations Sustainability Week ends on April 19th.
