ROSEAU, Dominica– Tourism ministers from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) meet here on Thursday to discuss a wide range of issues affecting the tourism sector in the sub-region, including air transportation.
“We are very pleased that after two years of COVID, we are hosting a major regional meeting, which is the seventh meeting of the OECS Council of Tourism Ministers. It is a hybrid meeting because we have some challenges with travel,” said Dominica’s Tourism Minister, Denise Charles.
Charles, who will take over the chairmanship of the Council, said intra-regional travel would be the priority agenda item, noting that since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, “regional tourism has dropped by over 65 percent, and it is a slowly recovering market for us in the Caribbean.
“It is something we would like to see restored, and our challenges have been air access to destinations,” she said, giving an example, her recent visit to Antigua and Barbuda, a 30-minute flight from Dominica.
“The proposed itinerary was for me to go to Miami, and it was taking me two days to travel to Antigua, which is a 30-minute flight from Dominica. So, it is a serious matter, and we are hoping to forge a path to see how we can discuss with the current regional airlines that have been set up during the pandemic and what solutions we can put forward to resolve this issue,” she added.
She said the training issue would also be discussed during the meeting, acknowledging that tourism is a “central pillar for most Caribbean islands, and many of them depend on tourism for their survival.
“We believe we can learn from each other, and Dominica is an upcoming destination….and on the agenda is the discussion for establishing a regional hospitality institute…so we can deliver five-star quality service in all our destinations,” she said.
The OECS groups the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands.
and then 
