Biography
Amanda Charles is the Sustainable Tourism Specialist at the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and heads the Sustainable Tourism Product Development Division with responsibility to coordinate implementation of the CTO’s Sustainable Tourism Programme, aimed at enhancing the development, growth, competitiveness and sustainability of Caribbean tourism.
Ms Charles holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management with minors in Business Management and French from the State University of New York (SUNY), Plattsburgh. She also holds the Master of Tourism Administration Degree with a concentration in Sustainable Destination Management, from The George Washington University, School of Business, Washington DC, USA.
A Tourism professional with extensive public and private sector experience spanning over 15 years, at the regional and international levels, Ms Charles previously functioned as the Adviser to the Directorate of Sustainable Tourism at the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) and as Tourism Consultant at the Organization of American States (OAS). She has also worked at several international NGO’s and non-profit organizations, including attachments to Counterpart International and the United Nations Foundation. Highly skilled in project proposal writing and project management, Ms. Charles has been instrumental in raising in excess of US $5 Million in development funding over her career, managing multiple projects related to tourism and ancillary sectors. Ms. Charles is from the Caribbean island of Dominica.