The Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, has made a strong plea for the region’s brightest to get involved in the tourism industry. Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace told delegates attending the 3rd Tourism Human Resources Conference at the Arawak Hotel here that while tourism is the Caribbean’s most important sector, it is not the industry of choice for most of the region’s best brains.

However, he said, the Caribbean cannot take full advantage of the “natural advantage” it has in tourism if the brightest people avoid the industry.

“We have a natural advantage in the area of tourism. Tourism chose us, we didn’t choose tourism,” the Secretary General said. “The world told us ‘you guys are very good at tourism,’ let’s listen to it and begin to do those things that are very important for us to get better. If this is the most important part of our industry we have to get the best people we have involved in the industry. We have to identify them, select them, recruit them, then train them in addition to the people who are already here.”

The CTO boss stressed that the region is facing mounting competition from other tourism destinations and “the best of our citizens” must be involved globally in order to successfully face this competition.

More than 75 delegates from across the region are participating in the three-day conference, organised by the CTO in collaboration with the Guadeloupe Tourist Board, the Guadeloupe Hospitality Institute and the Regional Council of Guadeloupe.

Themed, “Leading Change in Tourism Within a Dynamic, Global Environment,” the 3rd Tourism Human Resources Conference targets tourism and hospitality educators, trainers, human resource professionals/consultants and managers with responsibility for human resources across the region.

It is funded in part by the European Union within the framework of the Caribbean Regional Sustainable Tourism Development Programme.