[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

28455: Hermantin(News)Selling Haiti as a tourism mecca (fwd)





From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Selling Haiti as a tourism mecca


By Toni Marshall
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

June 11, 2006


They boarded a plane, took a boat and relaxed on a tiny island with thatch hut bungalows, tropical drinks, clean sand and turquoise waters.

It wasn't Puerto Rico or Hawaii or Aruba.

It was Haiti.

"We want to go there and buy land and retire. This is how wonderful an experience we had," said Kafe-Pascal Garoute, an artist and musician from Lauderhill. She and her husband, Christian "Kristo" Nicholas, recently returned from vacationing on the island.

For the first time in decades, promoters are mounting a major campaign to market the Caribbean nation to the United States as a vacation destination, tourism insiders said.

There's already one billboard in Broward County and two in Miami-Dade that advertise the island as a tourist spot.

MWM & Associates, a privately owned Miami-based promoter, hopes its billboards and sponsorship of a weekend conference -- the Second Annual Haiti Tourism and Economic Development Summit in Miami Beach starting June 23 -- will ignite more interest in Haiti as a vacation destination with business investment opportunities.

Haitian President René Préval is expected to attend the non-government sponsored event.

Roughly 300,000 people of Haitian heritage live in South Florida , according to the U.S. Census.

Haiti was known as the "Pearl of the Antilles" for centuries before a series of unstable governments, the proliferation of HIV and AIDS, a stinging U.S. embargo and rampant poverty overtook the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

"A new generation is growing up in the United States that have no reason to go to Haiti if we don't prepare Haiti for their return," said Magaly Prezeau of MWM & Associates.

"What better way than to make Haiti their tourist destination, for students to go to for Spring Break and for grandmas to retire."

A billboard at Northwest 27th Avenue and Sunrise Boulevard, just west of Interstate 95 in Broward, shows sunny skies, a blue water beach and an inviting chair in contrast to the typical depiction of Haiti, where chaos looms and killings and anarchy appear to be an everyday thing.

Prezeau's company wants to change Haiti's negative image. They've spent $250,000 and plan to invest up to $1 million on advertising campaigns throughout the United States and Canada. Ads also will run on Haitian radio and television.

More than 112,000 tourists and roughly 369,000 cruise ship passengers visited Haiti in 2005, according to the country's Department of Tourism.

Nathalie Liautaud of the Caribbean-Central American Action -- the Washington D.C.-based organization that promotes economic development in the region -- said the majority of tourists come from the United States because of the large number of Haitian immigrants here.

Since 1986, Labadee on Haiti's northern coast, has served as a stop for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

Haiti has about 1,000 hotel rooms, two international airports and some smaller airports.

Neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, made more than $5.2 billion from tourism in 2004.

Haiti has a long way to go before it becomes like the Dominican Republic, said author Anthony Hattenbach, 68, who lives in Miami. His family owned two resorts in Haiti. He won't return because of the violence. He also fears the kidnappings.

His recently released book, Stars Over Haiti, tells of celebrities and others visiting the island to vacation at resorts like his family's and others throughout the late 1950s until the late 1980s. The Duvalier regimes and the first ouster of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide soon followed by the U.S. embargo in 1991, finally took its toll on the tourism in a country formerly known for its nightclubs, villas, art galleries and ports. The capital, Port-au-Prince, erupted in violence after former leader Jean Bertrand Aristide left office in 2004.

Préval was elected in February and took office last month.

"Now that Haiti has gotten successfully through these elections, there seems to be at least now a reduction in the violence" said Susan Purcell, an expert in Haitian affairs at the University of Miami.

"Before the election, you didn't know whether the mobs would take to the streets or whether the turnout would be a fiasco."

The U.S. Department of State continues to issue warnings to individuals traveling to Haiti. Their Web site, www.state.gov, urges U.S. citizens to exercise caution and warns of kidnappings, spontaneous demonstrations and violent confrontations between armed groups.

"I don't think [the warning] is valid anymore," said Ralph Latortue, vice consul general for the Haitian consulate in Miami. "There were some kidnappings in Port-au-Prince, but the rest of the country has been secure."

Also, in early 2005 Haiti repaid its arrears to the World Bank putting it on better footing to receive loans; recently the country was readmitted to the 15-nation Caribbean community known as Caricom after a more than two-year absence.

Meanwhile, promoters are hoping that the recent positive developments will encourage more visitors to see what Haiti offers.

Getting away from the capital is where the true beauty of the island lays, Prezeau said.

Garoute and her husband went to L'Isle a Vache, a tiny island off the coast, accessible only by boat. They swam in a waterfall in Saut Machurine. They climbed mountains and snorkeled, she said. "It was almost as if you were walking back in time," Garoute said.

Toni Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sun-sentinel.com or 954-572-2004


Copyright © 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel