Haiti tourism should rebound

The tourist industry in Haiti, and in the Caribbean in general, should not suffer any long-term effects from the country’s devastating earthquake, the head of the UN World Tourism Organisation said ON Monday.

‘We do not expect much long term effects in terms of tourism,’ Taleb Rifai said. ‘We have seen cases like this in other parts of the world in the past.’ He pointed to incidents such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and other natural disasters.

‘The effects of course will be immediate. But our experience shows that the recovery in these situations becomes quick in terms of the public perception,’ said the head of the Madrid-based UNWTO.

He said the effect on Haiti would be more in regard to tourism infrastructure. As regards the Caribbean as a whole, ‘we do not think it will have a long-lasting effect,’ he said.

‘We think that in the public mind and the public perception, the attitude of solidarity toward Haiti is powerful to the extent that it would probably be able to stand up on its feet, the country in particular and the region in general.’

Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake flattened much of the impoverished Caribbean nation, where 70,000 bodies have been buried in mass graves and international aid workers are struggling to cope with the scale of the disaster.

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