The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) plans to publish its disaster risk management (DRM) guide early next year, as part of its ongoing project “Supporting a Climate Smart and Sustainable Caribbean Tourism Industry (CSSCTI).”
The guide, expected to be finalized next month, will target tourism businesses and policymakers. The organization’s aim is to help guide the industry’s preparedness, response and recovery from disasters that impact or potentially threaten the region. It will provide guidelines for climate change mitigation and adaptation, present regional and international best practices for disaster management and showcase effective response protocols for before, during and after a disaster.
Training workshops on DRM and climate resilience are another component in the CTO’s ongoing project. These efforts aim to identify the best DRM approaches; improve the tourism sector’s preparedness, response and resilience to climate-related problems; and to share knowledge and best practices on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The CTO also gathered a team of consultants from the University of Technology of Jamaica to create the ‘Disaster Risk Management Guide for the Caribbean Tourism Sector: A Practical Handbook for Tourism Business and Policymakers.’ This team is helping facilitate the workshops and offering a one-day training program for trainers to carry out instruction at a more local level. Five countries are participating in this first part of the project. The Bahamas, Belize, Haiti and Jamaica have already received the training, with Dominica to hold the workshop in the coming weeks.
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