St. George’s Grenada, Tuesday May 24th, 2011: New National Party (NNP) Team Leader for the Constituency of St. George South Mrs. Alexandra Otway-Noel has called on the NDC Government to find ways of improving the tourism sector. Mrs. Otway-Noel made the call at a meeting of the opposition party in Calliste, South St. George recently.

Stating that now is the time to get the tourism sector back on track she said that by next year with current industry taxes and the topsy turvy economy things would go from bad to worse if we do not start working hard. The NNP Shadow Minister of Tourism called on the NDC Administration to provide linkages between the public and private sectors to help stimulate the growth of the lagging industry. Quoting statistics from the Caribbean Tourism Organization Mrs. Noel spoke of Grenada being ranked very low as related to growth in their individual tourism sectors over the past year compared to other Islands. She blamed lack of vision and action on the part of the NDC government.

Mrs. Noel further stated that Grenada is losing out on the major German Market which has been an excellent source of visitors to the island over the years and has potential to be a very strong market. She said serious consideration needs to go into resolving issues with Condor the airline from Germany which has stopped its service to the Island. We also must look at opening new markets to Grenada’s tourism product and she warned that when the Cuban tourism industry which is currently building tens of thousands of hotel rooms opens to the US market, countries such as Grenada will lose major market share. She also called for the further development of Grenada’s tourism infrastructure which she stated is lagging behind those of our Caribbean neighbours.

In what she described as a sad state of affairs, Mrs. Otway-Noel also called on the administration to address the high level of unemployment in Grenada in an effective and direct manner, as daily we are losing our educated and skilled youth to other countries.

Responding to recent articles in the news paper directed at her by certain individuals, Mrs. Otway-Noel said that she had no intention of being “sucked into their vortex of confusion” and instead intends to keep working along with the New National Party to find ways of moving Grenada forward and out of the predicament it is now in.