The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) continues its programme to build strategic alliances with key regional and international institutions.
The CTO Board of Directors unanimously approved an application by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) for affiliate membership in CTO.

“We are honoured to be part of the CTO partnership and IICA looks forward to bringing our expertise to the organization,” said Ena Harvey, IICA’s representative in Barbados.

“We promise to work with CTO to promote linkages between agriculture and tourism to create sustainable livelihoods throughout the Caribbean,” she added.

IICA is a hemispheric organization mandated by leaders of the grouping of countries in the Americas to promote agricultural development throughout the 34 member nations. The Barbados office has been given a specific mandate to establish an agro-tourism linkage centre. Mrs. Harvey said that the agency’s membership in CTO would help IICA in its efforts to create tourism-generated income out of agricultural practices.

“IICA’s membership in CTO will prove to be beneficial to the Caribbean,” said CTO Secretary General, Jean Holder who has been behind CTO’s push to forge alliances with various organizations. “As the number of visitors to the region continues to rise we have to take advantage of the opportunity which the agricultural sector provides to create new and unique agro-based products and services to support the tourism sector.”

Last October, the CTO Board of Directors also approved affiliate membership for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) secretariat. Both OECS and IICA will sit on the Board.

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