18266: (Hermantin)Maimi-Herald-Tourists staying away from a chaotic Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Posted on Thu, Feb. 05, 2004

THE CARIBBEAN
Tourists staying away from a chaotic Haiti
Haiti has the history, culture and turquoise beaches to draw masses of
tourists. But decades of political strife have kept it from tapping that
potential.
BY MICHAEL A.W. OTTEY
mottey@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Outside Haiti's Ministry of Tourism, several employees
were in the parking lot as bullets began to fly. Some laughed nervously,
some flinched, some took cover behind walls and parked cars.

Across the street, police in Robocop riot gear fired shots into the air and
launched tear gas to disperse thousands of antigovernment demonstrators
advancing on the National Palace.

For the ministry employees, it was another outbreak of street violence that
in recent months made their job doubly difficult.

Even when calm reigns, Haiti struggles to attract tourists because of its
image of poverty and despair. When political tumult strikes, tourists
virtually disappear.

In the current turmoil, tourism is nearly dead, with most of the visitors
being Haitians who live abroad. But the 30 ministry professionals whose job
is to persuade foreigners to come to Haiti say they are forging ahead.

''We are still promoting Haiti,'' said Pierre Mathurin, director general of
the Ministry of Tourism. ``We are promoting it to the Haitian community, to
the North American community and to Europe.''

DAILY FLIGHTS

American Airlines operates four flights daily from Miami, one from Fort
Lauderdale, one from Orlando, two from New York and one from Boston.

''They don't come empty,'' Mathurin said, but a recent survey of those
flights reveals plenty of open seats.

Haiti has great tourism potential, offering turquoise beaches, ancient
castles and a rich mixture of French and African cultures. No other place in
the Americas has remained as true to Africa, and Haitians are fond of saying
Africans travel to Haiti today to find a motherland of centuries ago.

''I think it's a beautiful place, with lots of potential,'' said Andreea
Kvistad, 31, of Norway. `You combine the mountains and the sea, and you see
why it's very nice.''

Andreea and her husband, John, 38, are a rarity in Haiti these days. He is a
diplomat and she an accountant born and raised in Romania. They loaded up
their backpacks, flew to the neighboring Dominican Republic, then came to
Haiti to take in the sights.

ADDED INTEREST

''I like the combination of a laid-back holiday in the Dominican Republic
combined with a culturally interesting place like Haiti,'' John Kvistad
said. ``I would be bored just going to the Dominican Republic.''

But substandard infrastructure, corruption, political crisis, drug
trafficking, class and racial polarization and many other ills have long
keep Haiti on the margins of the tourism world.

Today no replacement has been named for Tourism Minister Martine Deverson
after his recent resignation, and the official website that touts Haiti as a
desirable tourist destination is down.

''Dear visitor,'' reads www.haititourisme.org. ``We regret to inform you
that Haiti Tourisme is offline until further notice. Thank you.''

There is some hope ahead, said Georges Belin, director of investments for
the tourism ministry.

RESORT PROJECTS

New hotels are planned, and resort projects are in the works that may help
Haiti get a piece of the tourism action that neighbors such as the Dominican
Republic and Jamaica enjoy.

According to Belin, upward of 22 private tourism investment projects are in
the pipeline.

He said the projects range from a proposed 15-room luxury hotel in the
southern port of Les Cayes to Temptation Beach Resort & Golf Club, a complex
of five 100-room hotels with a marina, a small airport and an 18-hole golf
course. Cost: $126 million.

Belin said a Haitian firm with U.S. investors known as Gonave S.A. plans to
build the complex on state-owned property on the western half of Gonave
Island, northwest of Port-au-Prince.

He said there's also a firm that wants to reopen the long-boarded-up Club
Med in the seaside village of Montrouis, north of the capital, and that some
cruise lines have plans to begin docking ships in southwestern Jacmel in
August.

But there are doubters.

''For some reason, the government has not done enough to promote tourism,''
said Jacqualine Labrom, owner and operator of Voyages Lumiére tours. ``They
had a big master plan for tourism back in 1990, and most of it has never
come to be.''

''It's just so frustrating,'' said Labrom, a native of England. ``The
government has not done enough to promote tourism. The potential here is
unbelievable.''

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