Above: Grenada

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Grenada is upgrading its Board of Tourism to a full-fledged Tourism Authority.

Tourism Minister Alexandra Otway-Noel said the transition would lead to “Increased marketing opportunities, greater potential for earning and better partnership with airlines and cruise ships,” among other benefits.

“We all understand that the tourism sector is critical to Grenada,” Otway-Noel said at a press conference this week to announce the move. “It is the number one driving force in our economy and it is important that we are meeting all the marks. In doing so, our marketing and our public relations and all of these areas have to be manned by the most appropriate people, in a time when the tourism industry is changing so rapidly.”

The decision to upgrade from a tourism board is part of a strategic plan launched in 2012 that involved input from hundreds of tourism stakeholders, she said.

“So what we are doing is carrying out the wishes of the tourism sector and making sure that Grenada is where it ought to be,” she said. “Tourism is ongoing. We have flights coming in, we have hotel rooms to fill, so we have to make sure that we do this in a very succinct way, because tourism continues.”

Simon Stiell, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, said the new Authority would place a greater focus on real development of the tourism sector.

“We will be able to take advantage of many opportunities in the tourism sector that, to date, we have failed to really capitalize on,” he said.