Dominica’s junior tourism minister seeks assistance to hold wellness symposium

Dominica’s Junior Minister for Tourism, Kitwanie Carbon, is appealing to businesses for financial assistance to host a one day health and wellness symposium.

The 16 year-old 2012 graduate of the Covent High School (CHS), out-performed 10 other ‘Junior Ministers’ from across the Caribbean, to win a debating contest on the state of the tourism industry at the Caribbean Tourism Association’s (CTO) Youth Congress in St. Martin in September 2011.

At that conference, Carbon made a presentation on the promotion of the wellness sector as a critical aspect of Dominica’s tourism product.

She says she capitalized on the fact that Dominica’s topography makes it ideal for promotion of wellness activities and that the country is well known for its centenarians, thus “making healthy living an ideal component of the Dominican tourism product.”

Now Carbon, in collaboration with the Discover Dominica Authority (DDA), has taken the initiative of organizing a symposium on August 27, 2012 at the Garraway Hotel to educate the public on the importance of health and wellness.

“The main objective is to give the youth and the general public which includes stakeholders of the tourism industry, a greater knowledge and awareness of the importance and benefits of health and wellness to our tourism product,” Carbon told DNO.

Organizers of the symposium will seek to spread knowledge of obesity and all the other, Chronic Non communicable diseases (CNCD’s), deliberate on how health and wellness could be incorporated into one’s lifestyle and explore its economic benefits.

“We must go beyond that and market Dominica in terms of sports tourism and of course we have our local remedies, our natural cuisine that we do market as our local food. We can go beyond that and market it as something good for athletes or in a pre-natal programme. It’s all part of using what you already have as a means of bringing more people to your country,” Carbon pointed out.

She is encouraging all businesses to come onboard to assist her in this venture.

As the winner of last year’s CTO Youth Congress debating competition, Carbon will travel to St. Kitts in October this year to serve as Chairperson for the 2012 event.