News

Why the Caribbean Tourism Industry Needs Language Classes

By: Caribbean Journal Staff - July 3, 2015 - 10:58 am

Above: St Lucia (CJ Photo)

By Dana Niland
CJ Contributor

President of the St Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association (SLHTA) Karolin Troubetzkoy has called for stakeholders in the Caribbean hospitality industry to serve the increasing diversity of visitors to the region by learning to speak more than one language.

Troubetzkoy, Operations Director of leading St Lucian Resorts Anse Chastanet and Jade Mountain and recent president-elect of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, said that her island was planning to offer hospitality-focused language courses such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German.

“These, of course, represent some of the key languages from our current and potential future source markets,” said Troubetzkoy, who also included Russian and Mandarin as significant languages to travelers to the region.

Troubetzkoy expressed her belief that the tourism sector is they key to establishing sustainable growth and development in the Caribbean.

In her address at the SLHTA’s annual general meeting, she called for further growth in the sector, contending that her island needed to “explore more aggressively how we strengthen our competitiveness through reduced taxation, greater human capital development, more efficient business processes, reduced bureaucracy and a collective commitment to more innovative, eco-friendly and sustainable business practices.”

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