Regional representatives met in El Salvador to evaluate international trends in the implementation of regional systems for tourism quality, define a similar system especially for Central America and develop a list of minimum quality criteria.

With support from the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the event also informed tourism authorities, destination managers and tourism businesses about quality-based programs.

The seminar was led by: Henryk Handszuh, Chief of Tourism Quality and Commerce at the WTO; Klaus Ehrlich, President of Euro/Gites; and Luis Grünewald, President of Argentina’s Turismo para Todos fund.

Ruben Rochi, El Salvador’s Tourism Minister, says, “what we’re looking for is to standardize the region’s evaluation mechanisms by defining standards for quality and, especially in the case of El Salvador, to understand the trends of international markets and have the technical instruments necessary to evaluate them.”

Quality is a transversal factor that is of great importance to competitiveness, commerce, sustainability and ethics in the sector. Encouraged by tourism companies, tourist destinations have begun to take the topic more seriously, aware that the “tourism product” is the sum of all contributions and processes by many different sectors involved in the industry.