Delegates from around the world are in Samoa for the first conference on Tourism Investment for the Development of Enterprise and Sustainability (TIDES).
The event has attracted participants from both the environmental and tourism sectors, on the one hand, and businesses and financial institutions, on the other. It is providing them with a chance to explore business and partnership opportunities.
“We expect this conference will help raise awareness of the Pacific region’s tourism potential,” says Chris Flynn, regional director Pacific of the Asia Pacific Travel Association (PATA).
“It will also allow attendees to develop or strengthen international partnerships and help them define the industry’s direction, as it emerges from the Global Financial Crisis.”
Risk management is one of the issues concerning tourism operators. Having recently conducted a series of workshops on the topic in Queensland, Australia, Stewart Moore, CEO of EC3 Global, the world’s largest environmental sustainability certifier for the travel and tourism sector, is providing risk management tool kits to attendees of the gathering.
“The tsunamis that so tragically struck both Samoa and Tonga in 2009 have added to concerns regarding how best to mitigate against such devastation and deal with likely impacts that climate change will have on the region,” Moore says
Organized by PATA, the event is sponsored by Pro€Invest of the European Commission as part of the EU’s African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).