Strategic Environmental Assessment of Tourism Investments in Southern Haiti

In early 2014 the Ministry of Tourism requested IDB support for a tourism project on the South Coast between Jacmel and Port-à-Piment, with the most concentrated focus between Aquin and Port Salut. The IDB asked Environmental Resources Management (ERM) to assess the region and seven specific sites between Côtes-de-Fer and Port-à-Piment from an environmental, social and cultural perspective. ERM did a desk assessment and carried out four missions to the South and Port-au-Prince, and the Ministry of Tourism held public meetings in Aquin and Les Cayes in August 2014. The report covers the tourism proposal, the legal and institutional framework, a regional assessment of the physical, biological, social and cultural baseline, assessments of each location, consultation, conformance with IDB safeguard policies, and conclusions and recommendations.

On demand, the report states that Haiti attracts 2.2 percent of the international tourists visiting the Caribbean region and that visitors numbered about 420,000 in 2013. Tourism in the South is mostly national, and estimates of current visitors range from 28,000 to 42,000 a year using hotels to more than 70,000 including the diaspora. Table 3 projects international demand including the diaspora at 152,000 in 2025 with the project and 105,000 without it.

The report finds that the economic success of tourism depends on the state of the natural ecosystems. It points to deforestation, charcoal production, mangrove loss, over-fishing and coastal erosion, to water shortages and flooding in Aquin, and to a risk that the beach at Port Salut could disappear within months without remedial action. It also notes that the Ministry of Tourism has no direct experience in designing sustainable tourism programs, and that data on water, sanitation, hazards and cultural sites are scarce, so that much of the evidence is observation and conversation with stakeholders.

The main recommendation is to focus on infrastructure in two or three locations, within a watershed or ecosystem restoration and management plan, and to concentrate on Aquin and Port Salut, with smaller investments possible in Saint-Louis-du-Sud and the Marine Protected Area at Saint-Jean-du-Sud. The report recommends avoiding large developments of the Punta Cana type, recommends a sustainable tourism team of the Ministry of Tourism in Les Cayes, and lists further studies in Table 18, among them catchment hydrology, hazard and risk, alternative livelihoods and cultural surveys.