Share disaster management strategies

KEINO SWAMBER

In St Thomas, USVI

COMMISSIONER of Tourism of the US Virgin Islands (USVI) Beverly Nicholson-Doty says leaders of islands within the Caribbean have a responsibility to share, among themselves, best practices for emergency management before, during and after a natural disaster.

“It may not be a hurricane, it could be an earthquake or a tsunami. I think one of the things we must do as a region is share those things that have worked, and those things that didn’t work so we can improve our overall crisis and disaster planning.”

She was speaking with reporters at the Petite Pump Room restaurant and bar at Charlotte Amalie Harbour In St Thomas, USVI on Thursday.

Several Caribbean journalists were hosted on the island for five days by Liat and the USVI Department of Tourism to get a first-hand view of recovery on St Thomas after widespread devastation caused by Category 5 hurricanes Irma and Maria in September last year.

Also being celebrated was the return of Liat to the Antigua-St Thomas route. Nicholson-Doty said one of the things usually taken for granted after a natural disaster is the communication network. “In my destination I may not have optimum communication, but my friends in the British Virgin Islands might be able to help and vice versa.

“We just updated our crisis communication plan and we shared it with all our partners in the Eastern Caribbean - not because we believe our plan is better than anyone else’s, it is a prototype and certainly my partners can point out things to me that I might not have noted in my plan and vice versa. Together our collective planning is important for us all.”

She also stressed the need for a traveler-education campaign as this too would be of benefit to the region.

“We must be a-tuned to working together, understanding that ultimately our travelers are not always knowledgeable about where a disaster occurs. For them (when they hear about) a hurricane in the US Virgin Islands, they don’t have the geographic sense to understand that the distance between Barbados and Trinidad and the US Virgin Islands is probably the same as between Florida and New York, so they lump us all together.”

The commissioner said more work is also needed to market the Caribbean as a destination to other people within the region. She said more often than not, strategies fail to take into account the traveler from the Caribbean looking to experience what is unique about their neighbours.

Speaking about the tourism industry on the island after the hurricanes, Nicholson-Doty said hotel occupancy is about 50 per cent at this time and the USVI is anticipating approximately 1.7 million visitors in 2018-2019 with the majority arriving in St Thomas.

Asked by Newsday about the economic impact the storms had on the industry, she said it was a difficult question to answer.

“It was an overall blow to the tourism industry. When we were closer in it, it was certainly difficult to look at the resurgence of tourism. But now, a year after, we can see that there is going to be real Improvements to the infrastructure in the territory- improved roads, new hospitals, new schools.

“One of the things we are also extremely proud of is that as hotels reopen, they are not just rebuilding to the standards they were at, but they are really improving the overall product.

“The last year has been challenging and we anticipate the recovery will last another year, but we know that the light at the end of the tunnel is that we are going to have a much improved territory for the people of the islands as well as the people who visit us.”