Business View Caribbean | July 2020

22 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN JULY 2020 which COVID-19 could have on the tourism- dependent economies of the region, CARPHA, the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) started working on COVID-19 preventative and education initiatives early in February. This led to the formalization of the COVID-19 Caribbean Tourism Task Force a month later between CARPHA, CTO and CHTA, and later joined by the Jamaica-based Global Tourism Resiliency and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC) and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Commission (OECSC). Not intended to replace specific national and territorial guidelines, or those being put in place by specific hotels and the industry, the procedures serve to reinforce and complement existing policies which have been drawn up to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The initiative has also been put in place to provide support particularly for the independent hotels, tourism- related businesses, and smaller destinations which lack the expertise or resources to develop their own. The task force undertook a review, which engaged a cross representation of Caribbean tourism stakeholders, of health safety protocols