500 small and micro-enterprises will benefit from a project aimed at improving their competitiveness in the tourism industry. The project focuses on those businesses which cater to cruise tourism and through training and technical assistance, it is hoped they will improve profitability and quality as well as competitiveness and the overall product. Deanna Peyrefitte is the coordinator and she says the project is in the assessment phase.
Deanna Peyrefitte,
"What we're looking at doing is improving competitiveness of our micro and small enterprises and improving the quality of goods and services, goods produced and services offered."
Keith Swift,
How has the project been going?
Deanna Peyrefitte,
"Its been going well. We were in the ground laying part for quite a while so now we're ready to move into our training and technical assistance aspect of the project which is why we are doing the publicity campaign to get more information out about the project because people have been asking, they have heard things here and there but they haven't really gotten a full information so now we're doing a publicity campaign which will take us into the month of August and September is when our training should start.
What we're hoping to accomplish is better products made by our micro and small enterprise so that when our tourists come, they appreciate what is made here and they buy more of what is made here and just so that we have stuff that is comparable to what is made in other destinations that cruise ships stop at so that when tourists come here, they spend more money here. So it will improve the overall profitability for SMEs as well as the quality of what is offered in our country."
About three hundred of the businesses participating in the project will receive training and 150 of those will receive technical assistance. A logo competition will be shortly.
