Keynote Address by Hugh Riley
Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer
Caribbean Tourism Organization
Statia Sustainable Conference, September 25th, 2013
Tourism & Water, Protecting our Common Future
What an exciting time we live in!
Twenty-four hour news, satellite images from distant
planets, next door neighbors acquiring instant stardom via
YouTube; Facebook users in the billions. What an exciting
time of innovation we live in!
With all the turmoil and frenetic activity, the shenanigans
and political posturing, the wars and threats of wars, the
panic generated by an unaccompanied package, the
warnings that if you see something, you must say something!
Sadly, what a stressful time we live in.
Thankfully, with all of that happening in the world today,
many of us in this room, on relatively short notice, were able
to make a decision to take a flight away from the hustle and
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the danger, the sirens and the threats, and escape to a little
corner of Paradise called St. Eustatius……to talk about
protecting our future. What a privilege and an honor to be
here!
And although we’re tucked away in the safety of Statia, even
as we speak, the instantaneous nature of the world we live in
allows every word we say to be beamed to any place in the
world, from a device we have in our pockets or on the table
in front of us. As recently as a few years ago, only a major
communications company could achieve that.
Foreign
correspondents for news networks would rush to a phone
and deliver audio reports, and then use the fastest available
methods to courier a video tape to the their newsroom for
broadcast.
Today, anyone one of us with a rudimentary smartphone can
send live images of an event to a friend halfway around the
world. Right this minute Charles Lindo can ask his cousin in
the Netherlands to show him – live - what he’s having for
lunch. (Yes, it’s already lunchtime in Amsterdam).
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In other words, the technology that connects the wealthiest
and most powerful individuals in the world today, is also
available to us here in St. Eustatius.
What and exciting time of change we live in!
By now you’re wondering, “What in the world has this got to
do with Water?” Was this man not invited here to talk about
“Tourism & Water, protecting our common future?”
Well, my point is that the more things change, the more they
remain the same. That’s the connection between today’s
rapid pace of development and the history that brought us to
this place.
In the days when St. Eustatius was one of the most highly
prized possessions in the Caribbean, water played a critical
role in its prosperity. Ships came here to “The Golden Rock”
to trade in a variety of cargo. That was the time in the
eighteenth century when this island’s strategic location in
the Caribbean Sea, made it a crucial prize for France, Britain,
and The Netherlands, and an especially valuable friend of the
Thirteen British Colonies of North America, before they even
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achieved Independence. That trading partnership of course
led to the famous “First Salute” which established St.
Eustatius
as
the
first
foreign
country
to
formally
acknowledge the independence of the United States in 1776.
The news of that momentous occasion traveled by water.
There were no smartphones in 1776.
In those days the only tweets came from birds!
Water of course continues to play a central role in binding us
together, here in the Caribbean. It allows us to transport
millions of people between our islands for work and
pleasure. Water provides us with sustenance; and is also
such an important symbol of our commonality that the
Caribbean Tourism Organization has enveloped it within our
statement of purpose: Leading sustainable tourism. One sea,
one voice, one Caribbean.
In fact, the CTO’s constitution
opens the consideration of membership to any country
whose shores are washed by the Caribbean Sea; so this
historically significant body of water – the Caribbean Sea - is
the first, though not the only consideration for membership
in the region’s tourism development entity.
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Water runs our lives. So this year, when the United Nations
World Tourism Organization challenged us to further
consider the role of water in tourism, we readily accepted
the challenge.
In fact, allow me to congratulate Charles, Maya, and their
hard
working
team
at
the
St.
Eustatius
Tourism
Development Foundation, for aligning this Statia Sustainable
Conference with the UNWTO’s theme for World Tourism
Day, which is celebrated each year on September 27th.
Water is at the core of our efforts at sustainability.
We must never forget that we in the Caribbean have a duty
to create policies and to engender behaviors in our people
and in our visitors, that will safeguard our water resources
for future generations.
We must practice sustainable water-use policies and observe
appropriate waste-water management practices. We must
not only enact, but also enforce legislation that regulates the
proper disposal of waste in the waters that wash our shores,
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and we must severely punish all violators, because they
endanger our health and jeopardize our children’s future.
But protecting assets such as the shipwrecks and other
stunning underwater marvels that make Statia such a
sought-after diving destination, is only part of the
Caribbean’s responsibility to monitor what’s happening in
the waters around our region.
We must also pay attention to rising sea-levels. That is a
threat to our very existence.
The scientists are warning us that a major source of concern
is the effect of global warming on the rate at which sea levels
are rising, and the fact that entire communities could be
destroyed by coastal flooding. It’s serious.
We must pay particular attention to the preservation of our
reefs, mangroves and wetlands, our rivers and waterfalls,
our precious marine life and our underwater heritage.
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We must build structures that capture, store, treat and use
water resources sensibly, including as a source of energy.
Many of our tourism professionals around the region are
familiar with a program called CHENACT – the Caribbean
Hotel Energy Efficiency Action Program which the CTO
launched four years ago in conjunction with the Caribbean
Hotel and Tourism Association, and is funded through a
number of international development agencies including the
Inter-American Development Bank, to whom we owe a great
debt of gratitude.
Since 2009 that program has helped more than 80 Caribbean
hotels to reduce their energy costs and increase their
competitiveness. It has saved the region’s hotel sector an
estimated US $270 million annually in utility costs.
CHENACT, coupled with the essential element of keeping our
tourism product fresh and exciting, is a critical step toward
sustainability.
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It’s also a prime example of what happens when a region
creates an effective public-private-partnership and provides
the tools to make it succeed.
Not surprisingly, the outcomes of the more efficient use of
energy are significant:
Environmental – in the sense that we decrease our carbon
footprint while also aiding the sustainability of our industry;
and economic.
To reduce our already high energy costs, is to increase our
competitiveness, make our products and services more
saleable, and enhance the appeal of the Caribbean.
So we save money, we create a more reliable energy supply
system, and we reduce the incidence of harmful emissions.
But there’s another benefit. More and more we’re seeing
evidence that “being green” has a growing public appeal;
discerning travelers around the world are seeking out
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vacation destinations that pay serious attention to the
preservation of the environment.
Consequently, I believe there will come a time when the
term ‘travel for green’ will become so ingrained in the
psyche of vacationers, that we in the Caribbean will be proud
that we got onboard and paid attention to issues that affect
the more responsible use of our resources.
Our wish at the CTO is that we can find ways of expanding
the types of excellent programs and partnerships that
include a broader range of our member-countries, and thus
improve the lives of even more of the people we have the
honour to represent here in the Caribbean.
Programs that allow this Region to reduce our dependency
on traditional fuels are the ones that will have credibility and
sustainability.
And
sharing
meaningful
information
and
practical
techniques with our governments, businesses, communities
and individuals, will help to ensure that we inculcate the
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principles of energy-conservation and energy-efficiency into
the habits and the lifestyles of all our people.
The more these behaviors become the standard in our
homes and in our daily life, the easier it will be to practice
those habits at the workplace. We are then better able to
educate the guests in our hotels, so that they too can
appreciate the value of our efforts, and assist us in realizing
our goals.
At the CTO we pledge to continue to provide our members
with practical guidelines and “how-to” expertise in
sustainable tourism development; and we do this on a
continuing basis.
However, once a year during our Sustainable Tourism
Conference in April, we also bring a particularly sharp focus
on these issues, when we invite experts to deliver the
message directly to our members and illustrate how the rest
of the world is tackling sustainability challenges.
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Listen out for the details of our April 2014 Sustainable
Tourism Conference, when these issues are explored indepth.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have no choice but to pay
attention to the sustainability of this industry, the training
and motivation of our staff, the engagement and sense of
ownership of our people, the safety and security of our
citizens and guests, the quality of the experience we deliver,
and the reliability of the information upon which we base
our decisions.
So let’s summarize where we are: If we incorporate the right
principles into our own people - young and old - train our
populations and our visitors to accept and adopt those
behaviours; enact and enforce appropriate legislation;
monitor and mitigate against climate change; then surely we
will guarantee each island’s sustainability. Right?
Unfortunately not. Not by a long shot. You see, there is a far
bigger threat to our sustainability.
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It’s the threat of isolation; of standing on our own as tiny,
individual states fighting against massive competitors with
big budgets and huge plans.
It’s the danger of being
complacent; closing our eyes to what other regions of the
world are already doing to combine their resources to make
a bigger noise in the clamor for travelers’ attention. It is the
folly of still debating the necessity for public-private
partnerships while the rest of the world uses it as a strategy
for success. We need to work more closely together as a
region.
The statistical evidence is clear: The Caribbean is the most
tourism-dependent region in the world.
What this means is that we have a greater interest in making
our tourism successful and sustainable, than anyone else,
anywhere in the world. But the competition is fierce. To
grow our region’s share of the one billion people who
traveled internationally in 2012, we MUST consolidate our
resources, share solutions and best practices with each
other; let economies of scale work for us to save money on
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advertising and marketing, trade show space, contractor
services and office rental in major markets.
We must combine the skills and talents of the public and
private sector – as other regions of the world are doing – and
most especially as the Caribbean Tourism Development
Company is attempting to do - to bring the world’s attention
to our region.
The power of One Sea, One Voice, One Caribbean is
undeniable. It’s more than simply a way to associate each
island with the strength of the Caribbean brand; it’s that too.
But even though our countries have an obvious ‘family
resemblance’ we’re NOT all the same.
The unique
combination of Dutch, English, French, and Spanish in this
exciting region, is in fact the very element that makes us
stronger together, and yet preserves our individuality.
So any visitor who has seen one island, has seen one island.
Our joining hands for a common purpose does not make us
surrender our individuality. In fact, that’s what helps us to
secure our future.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, over the next two days we will have
the privilege of exploring many aspects of what makes Statia
and the Caribbean special. We will reinforce the notion that
challenges are not restricted within certain borders, and
neither are solutions. We have a common responsibility to
be our brother’s keeper.
In closing, I congratulate St. Eustatius for focusing our
attention on this issue, and for underscoring the fact that we
must never allow physical size to determine the size of our
ideas, nor to suppress the clarity of our voice.
And when next we meet again next month, for our region’s
State of the Industry Conference in Martinique, we’ll be able
to take some of these ideas forward, perhaps in the form of a
resolution from the Statia Sustainable Conference, so that
the thoughts expressed in your sessions over the next two
days will be indelibly inscribed for the future.
Thank you.
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