Tourism in A Time of Need

The Caribbean has always been fascinating; its natural resources attract people from around the world. As we know, tourism started in the Caribbean by shipping companies in the quest for recreation for their crew and other people on board. Pickford and Black Steamship Line, a Canadian shipping company, operated between Halifax and a few ports in the Caribbean, including Havana, Cuba, and Cap-Haitien, Haiti. It was one of the leading shipping companies and encouraged people to travel with them by creating brochures to promote their ports’ scenic attractions. In 1938, it was reported that the West Indies and Central America added $33 million in revenue from the tourism activities; the amount represents 20% of the American tourism dollars (The Golden Age of the Haitian Tourism). In the following year (1939), Haiti’s government understood the need to create an environment to attract more tourism dollars, and the Haitian tourism sector was born.

We are now in 2020, where technology and innovation are leading the way and impacting many industries. However, during one of the Tourism Innovation Summit’s webinars, Shaina Silva, Haitian American Entrepreneur and the founder of She_Builds Initiative, stated that before we can talk about technology and innovation, we have to do an internal audit of ourselves and understand what went wrong. We’ve been talking about this for years, for decades, but we haven’t…