An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Re­port­ing from St John’s An­tigua

More than 500 del­e­gates, sup­pli­ers, and me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives are in An­tigua this week as the Caribbean tourism in­dus­try gath­ers for the 44th edi­tion of the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­ket­place, which opens to­day.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Andy Liburd, sales and mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer at the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Tourism Au­thor­i­ty, said the strong turnout re­flects con­fi­dence in re­gion­al tourism de­spite grow­ing glob­al un­cer­tain­ty.

“This is the sec­ond time An­tigua and Bar­bu­da will stage the Mar­ket­place, and in terms of arrange­ments, we are very pleased with how every­thing has been or­gan­ised. Del­e­ga­tions have been com­ing in, and it says a lot about the Caribbean tourism in­dus­try that it is alive and well,” Liburd said.

He said the event presents op­por­tu­ni­ties not on­ly for An­tigua and Bar­bu­da but for des­ti­na­tions across the re­gion to ex­pand tourism busi­ness and deep­en part­ner­ships.

“This is an ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for the in­dus­try to come to­geth­er and ex­plore fur­ther op­por­tu­ni­ties where in­di­vid­ual coun­tries can grow their busi­ness. In terms of the buy­ers, the host­ed buy­ers and sup­pli­ers, we are look­ing at well in ex­cess of 500 del­e­gates al­to­geth­er, in­clud­ing me­dia com­ing,” Liburd not­ed.

Liburd said or­gan­is­ers ex­pect del­e­gates to leave An­tigua with new busi­ness re­la­tion­ships and com­mer­cial op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“The fo­cus of Mar­ket­place is to en­sure that we can bring the glob­al sup­ply chains to­geth­er here in one place so they can ne­go­ti­ate in terms of the growth of the tourism busi­ness for the en­tire Caribbean.

“I see that it is more than like­ly that it will hap­pen be­cause we have some ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ties ahead of us.”

Asked about re­cent warn­ings from the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund that Caribbean tourism could feel the ef­fects of in­sta­bil­i­ty linked to the con­flict in­volv­ing Iran, Liburd said the re­gion must fo­cus on vis­i­bil­i­ty and po­si­tion­ing.

“There is al­ways go­ing to be trav­el de­mand. There will al­ways be de­mand for peo­ple to leave wher­ev­er they are be­cause of the var­i­ous pres­sures they face and to find a safe place where they can en­joy a va­ca­tion. It is a mat­ter of us putting our­selves as the best op­tion for those peo­ple who want to trav­el.”

Liburd said the Caribbean has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to mar­ket it­self col­lec­tive­ly as a safe and at­trac­tive des­ti­na­tion.

“If as a Caribbean we can come to­geth­er and show the rest of the world that this is the best place for you to take a break from every­thing that is hap­pen­ing, then we are on the right track.”

He al­so point­ed to tech­nol­o­gy and so­cial me­dia as ma­jor tools for ex­pand­ing the re­gion’s tourism reach, par­tic­u­lar­ly among younger trav­ellers.

“The Caribbean is prob­a­bly at the cusp of do­ing some­thing re­al­ly amaz­ing, and it so hap­pens that we are hav­ing this event now that can prob­a­bly move it to an­oth­er lev­el,” Liburd said.

Mean­while, in a closed-door ses­sion yes­ter­day, ex­ec­u­tives of the Caribbean Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion dis­cussed the rapid growth of short-term rentals across the re­gion and un­veiled a new frame­work to help gov­ern­ments reg­u­late the sec­tor.

CHTA pres­i­dent Sanovnik Destang said short-term rentals have be­come a per­ma­nent fea­ture of Caribbean tourism and should be man­aged through bal­anced reg­u­la­tion rather than re­stric­tions.

“Short-term rentals rep­re­sent both eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty and the need for smart reg­u­la­tion. Our frame­work recog­nis­es that STRs are here to stay and that’s pos­i­tive for lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship, des­ti­na­tion di­ver­si­ty and vis­i­tor choice.”

CHTA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Vanes­sa Ledes­ma said des­ti­na­tions adopt­ing trans­par­ent reg­is­tra­tion sys­tems and fair over­sight would be bet­ter po­si­tioned to max­imise tourism rev­enue while pro­tect­ing vis­i­tor safe­ty and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.