INCREASING ITS REVENUE will be one of the three future focuses of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association’s (CHTA) annual CHTA Caribbean Marketplace event, which draws hundreds of participants to a specified location each year.
Making this announcement last week during the official opening of this year’s conference at the Puerto Rico Convention Centre in San Juan, CHTA president Emil Lee also disclosed that this key tourism event would be adding seminars aimed at helping hotels supplement revenues by increasing direct bookings and yielding management strategies.
Lee stressed that both the CHTA and the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) “have critical roles to play in Caribbean tourism” and “they both have a tremendous responsibility to be visionary, provocative and even disruptive”.
“Change is never easy. Even when change is good, it is often scary or uncomfortable,” he told the hundreds of delegates in attendance.
The CHTA head said “in its process of becoming bolder thought leaders and more disruptive” in its new approach it was necessary for CHTA Caribbean Marketplace to evolve into an event “focused on increasing revenue.
“On behalf of the region, the CHTA must be bold and unafraid to challenge the status quo. There are regional issues that we all share such as the need for improved political transparency and integrity, airlift development strategies, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and addressing ever increasing costs of doing business.
“While these issues might not seem to be relevant to all of you, the reality is that everyone in this room has a vested interest in these issues. Ultimately, whether you are a tour operator selling Caribbean product, or an allied company selling your products to the Caribbean, or a Caribbean-based business, we all benefit from a healthy and vibrant Caribbean.”
He said greater emphasis would be placed on discussing European trends and strategies to increase European business; on managing online booking solutions; and sharing best practices on how to optimise revenue from weddings and honeymoons.
Lee also disclosed that by leveraging CHTA’s strategic partners and allied members to conduct generic seminars to help members increase their revenues in the broadest sense of the world, CHTA Caribbean Marketplace would become the conference to attend for hoteliers desirous of making more money.
He discussed plans to host the first CHIEF conference in Puerto Rico from October 2-4 this year, during which some of the most successful elements of former Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference and the Small Hotel Retreat will be utilised.
This year’s CHTA Caribbean Marketplace, which concluded last Friday, attracted over 1 080 delegates, inclusive of over 272 supplier companies and more than 102 buyers from over 16 countries, including Poland, Russia, Spain and Italy. It is the region’s largest buyer, supplier conference for hoteliers and tourism industry partners.
