Port-au-Prince.– Bill Clinton urged Americans to explore the riches of Haitian tourism on Friday as he took a VIP trip to a mountain palace and a nearby beach where a cruise ship pier is being built.

The appeal to tourists is part of the former U.S. president’s crusade to help the hemisphere’s poorest nation emerge from a cycle of poverty and instability, problems that helped destroyed a once thriving tourism industry here.

But his trip wasn’t one that many tourists can match. Escorted by local officials, Clinton flew by helicopter to the Sans Souci palace of Haiti’s 19th-century King Henri Christophe as U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police guarded against disturbances in the nearby city of Milot.

The few tourists who come this way for now –mostly locally based aid workers or missionaries– struggle through the city’s traffic-jammed streets and negotiate serpentine, broken roads to reach the site, where they are accosted by desperate merchants selling souvenirs and mule rides to the nearby Citadelle Laferriere fortress.

“Think what a wonderful thing it would be if the transportation permitted every Haitian child to come here,” he said. “They would learn about the greatness of the country’s history.”