Above: Guadeloupe (CJ Photo)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Haiti is eyeing the French departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique as new sources of tourism.
On Thursday, Haiti Tourism Minister Stephanie Villedrouin received a group of tourists from Guadeloupe to the Iblo Lele hotel in Cotes-de-Arcadins, as part of a programme aimed at bringing travel agents from the French-speaking islands to get a taste of Haiti’s tourism sector.
The programme, called Eductour, has so far invited 20 travel agents from Guadeloupe and Martinique to visit Haiti, in collaboration with the Tourism Association of Haiti.
The goal is to expose travel agents to what Haiti’s Tourism Ministry called the “tourist potential” of Haiti, by exploring different parts of the country.
In April, Villedrouin made a promotional trip to Guadeloupe as part of efforts to “put the country on the tourist map” of the region.
That trip included meetings with travel agencies and airline officials aiming to find an agreement on creating a tourism package to Haiti.
The tourists from Guadeloupe will spend two nights in Port-au-Prince and three in Cote-des-Arcadins, visiting sites like the Boutilliers Observatory and the Musee du Pantheon National Haitien (MUPANAH) museum, among other attractions.
Another Caribbean country, Dominica, which neighbours the two French departments sees as much as 50 percent of its tourists come from the French department, although many come by ferry.