The Convention is an ambitious project to establish a legal framework for the promotion of sustainable tourism across the entire space of the Greater Caribbean. Ambitious because it involves countries that are not accustomed to working together in tourism matters—the islands, with their focus on sun, sea and sand tourism and the mainland countries of Central and South America bordering the Caribbean, with their interest in promoting heritage and eco-tourism. Nearly 33 million tourists came to the region in 2002 (see Table).

Tourist arrivals in ACS countries 2002, millions

Mexico	19.7
Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama	5.2
CARICOM	4.8
Dutch and French affiliated islands	1.7
Central America	1.0
Total ACS	32.9

The Convention is also ambitious because it advocates a many-sided concept of “sustainability” in tourism. According to Article 3, this embraces:

• Preservation and consolidation of Caribbean culture and identity

• Strong community participation in tourism.

• Environmental sustainability

• Technology for waste management and alternative energy sources;

• use of economic policies and instruments to foster enterprise sustainability.

• Market and tourism product development

• Education of communities and visitors alike.

• Establishment of legal and regulatory frameworks.

• An agreed set of sustainability indicators and system of categorizing destinations.

• Air and maritime transport to promote multi-destination and intra-regional tourism.

• Coordination with the private sector

• An information centre on sustainable tourism.

The 12 elements were painstakingly negotiated among ACS members in a series of meetings lasting over two years. At the 2nd ACS Summit in 1999 in Santo Domingo a Memorandum of Understanding on the Sustainable Tourism Zone of the Caribbean (STZC) was signed.

A further two years were spent drafting the Convention that gives legal expression to the aspiration to create a Sustainable Tourism Zone. In the language of lawyers this is a “soft” Convention. It provides a framework and broad procedures for categorising destinations according to the degrees of sustainability. The procedures will be subject to continuous amendment and refinement. Full details are published on the ACS website at ../tourism.htm.

The STZC Convention was signed by most ACS member states at the 3rd Summit in December 2001. But at the time of signing, CARICOM countries indicated that there were certain issues that they wished to have resolved before they could give it their final blessing in the form of ratification.

So more time has been spent since then on crystallising these issues. By last June, CARICOM had indicated that the principal issues are three-fold:

• the definition of “Caribbean” should be inclusive of all countries intended to be in the Zone, whether or not they actually border the Caribbean Sea;

• the definition of “destination” should take account of the possibility that a whole country may be categorised as a destination, in the case of small tourist islands

• Ensure that the Panel of Experts for set up to categorise destinations is geographically representative of the whole Caribbean region, including small and “new and emerging” destinations.

These issues are not really contentious; but expressing them in legal format can become complicated. That is why a High Level Negotiating Group is to be convened: to enable the necessary legal expertise and political attention. The aim is to have an agreement ready in time for the 4th ACS Summit later this year.

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