 The COVID-19 pandemic has without doubt had significant socio-economic impacts the world over. The United Nations has noted that the restart of tourism will help kickstart recovery and growth as the tourism industry is the main revenue earner for many countries, especially within the Caribbean region. It is for this reason that the World Tourism Organization mandated that World Tourism Day 2021 focuses on tourism for inclusive growth. The Ministry of Tourism as part of activities to commemorate the day held a panel discussion with stakeholders in the industry. Panelist tourism officer in the Ministry of Tourism, Samantha Charles, highlighted some of the challenges faced in the preparatory phase for the reopening of St. Lucia's tourism sector. Going back to preparation of protocols, one of the things that required from a lot of our tourism service providers is submission of a COVID action plan that would guide their operations. So, you know, a lot of the times having to review those plans and getting the necessary feedback in a timely manner because as we could all understand, time is money. So, you know, there were some delays which would inhibit the operator's opportunity to actually resume operations as they would have liked to and you know, it would be a little ticklish situation but again going back to the assistance and the collaborative efforts we were able to mitigate against that challenge and a few others in terms of really helping our operators to get back on their feet and also ensuring that there was a level of understanding among the operators. General Manager of Belju Hotel, Dean La Force explained that while the hotel is currently confronted by many challenges, he is confident that the situation will improve. September 1st was our very first opening. Of course, we did not start strong. The rest of the year doesn't look strong either but what we have noticed since we've opened our doors, if you're open, you'll be published, the people will come and we have seen very small spikes in our occupancies which is great news. So just being open for the first 29 days has already seen good signs and of course we must commend the hotels that actually were brave enough to pave the way to keep St Lucia as a destination, a float, when they actually was brave enough to open the doors in the middle of a pandemic. Sofra Regional Development Foundation's Operations Manager Lester Casabal highlighted that his hope for the future is greater tourism linkages with all other sectors. There is opportunity for expansion, for growth, development of the industry, there may be other areas that we need to look at that we have not probably enough resources in there and create some level of capacity for it. I think our vendors, if you're going to heavy hit from COVID, you may need to revisit them, establish certain, it was a matter of craft sites or certain sites under the protocol to help them, especially in the south in Sofra where we've had many of the vendors of just basically kind of just here. So we need to get them back on board and we're very focused in doing that and enabling them to be part and parcel of tourism office economically. In November, we're supposed to have our first cruise lines coming into Sofra, so we're very much in advanced stages of establishing all the make sure I have protocols and the systems are in place. I feel like that, but as part of that, you're enabling that everybody somehow, those persons are able to get a piece of the pie. World Tourism Day is commemorated annually on the 27th of September.