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Ministry of Trade and Industry
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Commonwealth Secretariat
SMALL STATES IN TRANSITION – FROM VULNERABILITY TO COMPETITIVENESS
ST LUCIA
STRATEGIC APPROACH TO TOURISM AS AN EXPORT AND
DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY IN SMALL STATES
Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago – January 2004
Introduction:
Saint Lucia as a small island state has witnessed positive growth in tourism in recent
years to the extent that this sector has effectively replaced agriculture as the lead
contributor to the Gross Domestic Product. However there is growing concern about
the future of tourism both in terms of global developments and the need to safeguard
and maximize its development potential.
The stated proposition signifies a major shift in the traditional approaches to tourism
development in Saint Lucia. Moreover it challenges the current concepts and
practices towards national development planning and export strategy formulation in
particular.
Most Small States (Saint Lucia included) are still quite immature in export strategy
formulation as a national development planning exercise even though strategic
planning for tourism development has advanced significantly. The stated proposition
therefore constitutes a threefold challenge to the small Island state. These
challenges can be delineated as follows:
1. Refining and strengthening the strategic planning framework for export
development to adequately integrate tourism.
2. Changing the existing strategic planning framework for tourism development
to an export oriented approach
3. Finding the most appropriate mechanisms for fusing the above two
endeavors or approaches so that tourism becomes the core of a national
development strategy based on export development.
The ensuing sections of this Technical Paper addresses challenge number 2 above,
by highlighting some of t e critical issues that small islands like Saint Lucia must
h
address in achieving the requisite paradigm shift in tourism planning i.e. to effectively...