The State University of Haiti and Laval University (Quebec, Canada), under the honorary presidency of Madame Michaëlle Jean, the UNESCO Special Envoy to Haiti, organize from November 10 to 13 to Karibe Hotel in Port-au-Prince, an international colloquium under the theme "Heritage, cultural tourism and sustainable development in Haiti Challenges and perspectives for the future".

This international colloquium aims to study the current challenges and perspectives for the futureof cultural tourism for a sustainable development in Haiti. Tourism is a growing business worldwide and has become an important source of income for developing countries.

Although the cultural tourism is not without problems (degradation of sites, folklorization of local cultures, surge of the real estate prices), it offers unexpected opportunities of development : it allows to value the country's culture, it offers employment opportunities and economic benefits to local people. Employment in the services sector are generally rewarding and provide an opportunity for development of skills in the development and management of heritage.

Already called "the pearl of the Antilles," Haiti was for many years one of the top tourist destinations in the Caribbean. Even if the deterioration of the political and economic situation has reduced the tourism activity over the last thirty years, the country still has a rich historical heritage in term of architecture, of handicraft, artistic, literary, archaeological, natural and festive, that needs to be better valued and exploited as a tourist destination.

This colloquium proposes, but not limited to, six themes of reflection : training to the trades of tourism ; development of road and hotel infrastructures ; the challenges of tourism development of heritage ; the heritage and tourism of earthquake of January 12, 2010 ; the elaboration of tourist routes that include the tangible and intangible heritage ; and securing the beach tourism and cultural tourism.

HL/ HaitiLibre