Noticias del Portal de la Cultura de América Latina y el Caribe

UNESCO Transcultura promotes the integration of cultural and creative industries and the tourism sector in the Caribbean

10 November 2022/ UNESCO Havana

The UNESCO programme Transcultura: Integrating Cuba, Caribbean and the European Union through culture and creativity, funded by the European Union, hosted the regional workshop Creative tourism in the Caribbean: leveraging sustainable development through culture, from 7 to 9 November 2022 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The event was attended by representatives of the tourism sector, the cultural and creative sectors’ authorities, and young cultural and creative practitioners from 14 Caribbean States (beneficiary countries of the Transcultura programme). The workshop aimed at promoting opportunities for cultural and creative professionals in the tourism industry, and at the same time fostering sustainable tourism based on identity and cultural and creative industries.

"With the Transcultura programme, UNESCO aims at fostering regional integration and intersectoral cooperation, networking and strengthening value chain and destination management models. This will contribute to overcome the multiple challenges facing the cultural and creative industries and the tourism sector in the Caribbean."
Anne Lemaistre, Director of UNESCO Regional Office for Culture in Latin America and the Caribbean

While tourism was presented as an important income-generating activity for cultural and creative professionals, tourists were identified as ‘custodians of World Heritage and ambassadors of intercultural dialogue’. As both sectors have been heavily disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the workshop participants talked about the transformative potential of culture and creativity towards a more sustainable, inclusive and responsible approach of the tourism industry.

Caribbean tourism has been traditionally centred around ‘sun and sand’. However, participating tourism and cultural stakeholders agreed on the potential of cultural and creative tourism for the region, based on its cultural diversity and creativity.

"I studied arts at university, and most of my colleagues have never worked in the arts. A better integration between the cultural and creative industries with the tourist sector can create incentives, jobs and better revenues for us creatives."
Alanis Forde (Barbados), visual artist

During the workshop, a mapping on significant cultural and creative goods, services and activities within Transcultura’s geographic scope was launched. The objective is to identify cultural tourism destinations and attractions to bolster the competitiveness of the local creative economy and to enhance sustainable tourism development opportunities. Participants also discussed governance models and public policies to strengthen the tourism value chain and destination management capacities in the Caribbean.

"This UNESCO Transcultura workshop was a very unique experience where there has been a deliberate intention to align the tourist sector interests and the culture sector interests, together with the voices of young creatives from the Caribbean. And if those are aligned and share common values, I think there are many opportunities for synergies."
Gregory Barrington Simms, Jamaica Cultural Development Commission

With the purpose of creating opportunities for Caribbean young cultural and creative professionals in the tourism sector, the Transcultura programme strengthens the capacities of heritage sites managers and promotes economic activities linked to the cultural and creative industries in sustainable tourism destinations in 17 Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.