A short opening ceremony preceded the training, which included remarks from Ms. Avril Alexander, Regional Coordinator of GWP-C and a feature address by Mr. Ivan Rodrigues, Water Manager of the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA). Mr. Rodrigues was able to give great perspective to the workshop, highlighting the various issues the Authority encounters in meeting the water supply needs of Antigua. He attributed many of these issues to droughts and the high cost of producing desalinated water compared to ground and surface water.
He further explained that desalination produced 60% of the country’s portable water and supplies more than ½ of the population resulting in a cost of almost EC$50 per 1000 imperial gallons versus some windward islands whose cost for producing the same amount of water is in the region of EC$8.
The participants targeted for the workshop included stakeholders from the tourism industry, water services agencies, the Ministry of Tourism, the Hotel Association of Antigua, Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health. This was the first time the training manual developed was used to carry out a WUE workshop and thus the training sought to assess how effective the training manual was in:
- Demonstrating the benefits of improved WUE.
- Demonstrating methodologies for assessing the economic benefits of improved WUE.
- Explaining the potential impacts of climate change on ware resources use in the sector.
- Initiating discussions on ways to make provisions for adapting WUE measures.
- Fostering discussions on retrofitting the industry with WUE devices.
The workshop’s facilitator, Ms. Lucia Mings of Environment Tourism Consulting Limited (ETC) covered a range of topics over the two-day period. Some of these areas included:
- Challenges associated with water provision in Antigua
- Demand management and efficiency technologies
- Economics of water use
- Water audits
- Government incentives to encourage water efficiency in the Hotel Sector
- Role certification schemes can play in providing incentives
Participants that successfully completed the two-day training course were awarded with training certificates.