Can Haiti Be Brought Back into the World Tourism Circuit?

If so it will require the sort of Green/Universal Design convergence and disability and development thinking that has been percolating through innovative destination development projects around the world.

With no such known projects slated for Haiti we offer this thought-starter from Reuters and the note that one of the finalists for the Ashoka Changemakers' 2009 Geotourism Challenge ws an inclusive itinerary following the Slave Route in Brazil by Reality Tour.

LABADEE, Haiti, Oct 6 (Reuters) - An ultramodern ocean liner and a 19th-century mountaintop fortress built by a slave rebellion leader figure prominently in Haiti's plans to revive tourism in the poorest nation in the Americas.

A key element of the hoped-for renaissance may be close to fruition. Haitian Tourism Minister Patrick Delatour said the government recently signed a deal with Venezuela for an international airport, Haiti's second, in Cap-Haitien, its second-largest city.

Starting in December, Royal Caribbean Cruises will send its new Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, to a weekly stopover at the northern beach resort of Labadee, another important step forward for a tourism economy that crumbled under years of political turmoil.

The next move could be to build a road between Labadee and Haiti's World Heritage Site, a park containing the massive Citadelle Laferriere fortress and the Sans Souci palace built by Henri Christophe, a leader of the slave revolt that freed Haiti from French rule in 1804.

"In 2011 we will be able to say that Haiti is back on the world tourism map," Delatour told reporters last week.