How Saint Lucia Tailored to CDC’s COVID-19 Protocol Changes

Saint Lucia was among the initially Caribbean nations around the world to re-open up to people next the March 2020 COVID-19 outbreak and it appears the spot will be equally ready to surmount CDC’s the latest transform in traveler protocols.

Which is simply because the vacation spot has maintained rigid journey protocols including demanded pre-arrival COVID-19 screening, everyday screening and checking of workers and guests, implemented sanitization protocols at intermittent details throughout travelers’ stays and licensed up-to-date social-distancing methods.

Responsibility for the country’s overall method rests with its key minister, Allen Chastanet, a Saint Lucia native who is also a former tourism minister of the Caribbean nation. Chastanet’s travel track record also includes a expression as vice president of marketing and advertising and income for Air Jamaica. In addition, he is currently controlling director of Saint Lucia’s Coco Palm Hotel.

We spoke with the country’s chief to gain his standpoint on Saint Lucia’s capacity to adapt to the newest CDC changes and understand how its tourism segment has fared considering that the outbreak.

Allen Chastanet, Saint Lucia Prime Minister
“I imagine Saint Lucia had the ideal point of view from the get-go.” – Allen Chastanet. (Photo courtesy of Saint Lucia Tourism Authority)

TP: You should describe the effects of the most up-to-date CDC adjustments on Saint Lucia’s tourism protocols and processes, if any.

AC: “It hasn’t impacted us seriously. We are well prepared and have been geared up for a very long time to employ PCR tests for persons to travel back again to Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.”

TP: How have been you able to put together for this need so immediately?

AC: “We begun to style protocols for Saint Lucia in April [and] opened up in June. Saint Lucia from that level had previously been contacting for PCR testing in advance of you get on a aircraft. There was no scenario that we ran that allowing a human being in the place with out a PCR exam designed any sense. Testing men and women on arrival from a get in touch with tracing standpoint, produces all kinds of troubles.

“We felt that the journey sector could possibly get better considerably more rapidly if people’s confidence in vacation was tackled, so from really early we had been calling for PCR screening. I think Saint Lucia experienced the proper standpoint from the get-go. There is a phrase we use known as “co-present with COVID,” mainly because COVID is like Mom Mother nature. You can’t defeat Mother Character, you have to master to work with Mom Nature.”

TP: Does Saint Lucia enjoy any pros in this problem?

AC: “The big difference with we have completed compared to what is using put in the more substantial international locations, which is incredibly challenging point for them to replicate, is that you can appear into our tourism bubble. You can keep at a lodge, have entry inside of the hotel and we have special tours that we have certified. Or, you can arrive in and go into quarantine for 14 times.”

TP: Your country’s COVID-19 protocols seem to be thorough and stringent, and in general infection prices stay minimal. How was this reached and how did it variable in the government’s conclusion to reopen the vacation spot to visitors earlier than other Caribbean nations?

AC: “We basically claimed look, what are our very clear aims below? Our goals are to help save lives and to save livelihoods. Your governor in California I consider definitely put it extremely effectively: this is not an on-off swap, this is a dimmer change. It can be heading to be continuously likely up and down. When there are instances when it is essential to improve your protocols, because there is a prospective local community spread, you do that. What we’ve accomplished is constantly alter our protocols primarily based on what the proof is telling us.”

Ladera resort near Saint Lucia’s Piton mountains
Saint Lucia’s gives a wide range of distinct resorts. At the Ladera vacation resort close to Saint Lucia’s Piton mountains. (Picture by Brian Major)

TP: How has tourism fared considering the fact that reopening in June?

AC: In the thirty day period of December we experienced almost a 45 percent recovery of our tourism sector. We have taken the assistance of the Earth Financial institution and the Worldwide Monetary Fund (IMF) we have instituted and carried out a lot of capital tasks investments tasks. We’re repairing up roadways, our airport [redevelopment] has started off, we’re correcting up heath care and local community facilities, genuinely getting ready for when the earth re-opens once again. We even now have not returned to our 2019 figures all indications are that will not transpire until finally 2023–2024.

“But you know we have provided ourselves hope in conditions of what the long run holds. The superior news is with the vaccine coming, there’s a finish line. 6 months in the past, no one realized where by the end line was.”

TP: The visitor expertise in Saint Lucia now is certainly fairly various as opposed with pre-COVID days, but can website visitors nevertheless expect a agent Saint Lucia encounter in the spot now?

AC: “We have 200,000 American arrivals each and every year so this is not a mass tourism desired destination. We want to keep on being authentic and the location has lent by itself to do what we are accomplishing mainly because we have a ton of open-air tourism like likely to the Pitons, or likely to Sulfur Springs or zip-lining. All of these factors are outside.

“We’re really fortunate. Saint Lucia is a passionate destination. Even in our all-inclusive hotels, globally they would be categorised as boutique hotels because they’re that smaller. Saint Lucia is not one particular of these dense tourism populations. We nonetheless have a tourism products that is quite substantially built-in into the DNA of Saint Lucia. Even with some of the tours we have, it was quite effortless to set protocols in spot to make them safe and sound. It is normally been about holding travellers protected and preserving our regional population harmless.”