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Suggested slogan for The Sandals Newsletter/The Daily Tampon
"In the spirit of self reliance... we make our own news"
Carib tourism interests urged to market own hotel brands
Encourage Sandals to open up in Dubai, says CTO head
INGRID BROWN , Sunday Observer staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, May 18, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) has urged tourism interests in the region to market home-grown hotel brands, such as Sandals, as their earnings would always remain in the Caribbean.
The call came ahead of a meeting of Caribbean tourism ministers, later this month, to fine-tune a proposal for their respective governments to fund a US$30 million tourism marketing campaign to sell the region as one destination.
St Lucia's tourism and civil aviation minister, Senator Allen Chastanet, who is also chairman of the CTO, told the 12th Caribbean Media Exchange (CMEx) on Sustainable Tourism conference here that: "If we can't understand the power of the Caribbean brand and if we can't put money to make that happen then we have a problem."
Chastenet said the Caribbean must focus on marketing the region's brands such as Sandals hotel chain as the earnings would always remain in the Caribbean.
He urged his listeners not to take his remarks as criticism of foreign brands, but noted that hotels like the Spanish chain "are exploiting the region's markets as the earnings are taken out of the region".
"Sandals is a Caribbean brand and we should be encouraging them to open up in Dubai and the rest of the world because the money they make will come back to the region because this is where their headquarters are," he said.
Chastanet said this month's tourism ministers meeting would formulate recommendations for the Caricom Heads of Government summit which would devote one day to discussing the industry in July.
"We are hoping that coming out of the Caricom heads of government meeting, that they will endorse the recommendations, and that it would be implementable right away," he said.
He noted that the ministers of tourism and aviation had also been formally invited to attend a meeting on May 29 in Antigua to discuss the issue. In addition, the matter was to be further resolved during the Caucus administration tourism meeting in Washington on June 21.
But saying he was tired of all the talk, Chastanet vowed not to attend any further regional meetings if a format could not be worked out to fund the proposed marketing campaign.
"The time to talk is done.If we leave that meeting July without a formula to raise money for the regional marketing campaign then I have attended my last regional meeting," he declared, suggesting that in an industry which earned billions of dollars of foreign exchange, it should not be such a difficult task to raise US$30 million.
He added that the Washington meeting would seek to lobby the United States government to review the issue of exempting the Caribbean from the US$40 departure tax persons travelling outside of the US are required to pay.
"We lost the passport issue which is taking away the advantage that we had, but we will be bringing this up in Washington to see if the Caribbean can be exempted from that, recognising the sensitivity we have towards tourism," Chastenet said.
Suggested slogan for The Sandals Newsletter/The Daily Tampon
"In the spirit of self reliance... we make our own news"
Carib tourism interests urged to market own hotel brands
Encourage Sandals to open up in Dubai, says CTO head
INGRID BROWN , Sunday Observer staff reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, May 18, 2008
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) has urged tourism interests in the region to market home-grown hotel brands, such as Sandals, as their earnings would always remain in the Caribbean.
The call came ahead of a meeting of Caribbean tourism ministers, later this month, to fine-tune a proposal for their respective governments to fund a US$30 million tourism marketing campaign to sell the region as one destination.
St Lucia's tourism and civil aviation minister, Senator Allen Chastanet, who is also chairman of the CTO, told the 12th Caribbean Media Exchange (CMEx) on Sustainable Tourism conference here that: "If we can't understand the power of the Caribbean brand and if we can't put money to make that happen then we have a problem."
Chastenet said the Caribbean must focus on marketing the region's brands such as Sandals hotel chain as the earnings would always remain in the Caribbean.
He urged his listeners not to take his remarks as criticism of foreign brands, but noted that hotels like the Spanish chain "are exploiting the region's markets as the earnings are taken out of the region".
"Sandals is a Caribbean brand and we should be encouraging them to open up in Dubai and the rest of the world because the money they make will come back to the region because this is where their headquarters are," he said.
Chastanet said this month's tourism ministers meeting would formulate recommendations for the Caricom Heads of Government summit which would devote one day to discussing the industry in July.
"We are hoping that coming out of the Caricom heads of government meeting, that they will endorse the recommendations, and that it would be implementable right away," he said.
He noted that the ministers of tourism and aviation had also been formally invited to attend a meeting on May 29 in Antigua to discuss the issue. In addition, the matter was to be further resolved during the Caucus administration tourism meeting in Washington on June 21.
But saying he was tired of all the talk, Chastanet vowed not to attend any further regional meetings if a format could not be worked out to fund the proposed marketing campaign.
"The time to talk is done.If we leave that meeting July without a formula to raise money for the regional marketing campaign then I have attended my last regional meeting," he declared, suggesting that in an industry which earned billions of dollars of foreign exchange, it should not be such a difficult task to raise US$30 million.
He added that the Washington meeting would seek to lobby the United States government to review the issue of exempting the Caribbean from the US$40 departure tax persons travelling outside of the US are required to pay.
"We lost the passport issue which is taking away the advantage that we had, but we will be bringing this up in Washington to see if the Caribbean can be exempted from that, recognising the sensitivity we have towards tourism," Chastenet said.
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