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Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 01, 2020 (SKNIS): The Travel Approved Seal is necessary to operate tourism based services in St. Kitts and Nevis, says Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the St. Kitts Tourism Authority (SKTA), Raquel Brown, while appearing on the radio and television show “Working for You” on September 30.

At the end of July 2020, the SKTA started a Travel Approved Training for the Travel Approved Seal for all tourism entities that interact with tourists, said Ms. Brown.  

The CEO stated that after training the businesses will have to have the seal and certificate displayed. It will also be on the SKTA website. She said persons will be able to go to the website and see what they can do in St. Kitts.

She said that the SKTA will be sending information to all its stakeholders including tour operators, travel agents and others.

“If you don’t have that travel approved seal on our website, no one is going to go to you and please don’t come to the Tourism Authority or go to Minister Grant saying I need to get this seal,” she said. “This is collective responsibility. It starts with us here. You have to do your part to ensure that your business and your employees are trained and they can get the seal.”

Ms. Brown said that even though some businesses are not too sure of their status of operation, they are still going to the training and doing their part.

“I applaud those individuals because they have decided that they are going to do this collectively on their own to make sure,” she said. “We have reassured them and we’ve said to them it is not going to be what it used to be. That’s a very hard thing because we have had the benefit of having a cruise ship almost every day here. …We got accustomed to it because it was good. It’s not that we cannot get back to that, but it will take some time. We have to manage those expectations.”

The Chief Executive Officer said that the training has given businesses hope as they see that the Tourism Authority is helping the destination and help them scale up by having the certificate.