Above: the inauguration ceremony (Photo: MT Haiti)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Haiti has inaugurated a tourism project aimed at restoring the facades of a series of properties on Cap Haitien’s Rue 19.

The project, which targets 29 houses on the thoroughfare, is supported by the UN’s MINUSTAH peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

“This project will not only improve the aesthetics of the street, that leads directly to the public square in front of the Cathedral and the city of Cap Haitien; it also will be part of the attraction of tourists who visit Cap-Haitien,” said Mariano Fernandez, the special representative of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Haiti and leader of MINUSTAH. “Cleaning the facades on the street will only improve tourism in Haiti’s second city.”

Dieudonne Etienne, northern regional director at Haiti’s Ministry of Tourism, pointed to the cultural importance of Cap Haitien to Haiti, calling it a city boasting a “rare wealth of high cultural value.”

The project was funded by MINUSTAH in the amount of just under $100,000, along with support from the city of Cap Haitien and Haiti’s Ministry of Tourism.

Cap-Haitien, with a population of just under 200,000 people, is the second-largest city in Haiti.

Haiti’s Tourism Ministry has been working to develop nearby Milot, the site of the Sans-Souci Palace, as a tourism centre — an area that UN World Tourism Organization Secretary General called a “true gem” during a visit last year.