The Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CTO) is step­ping up its push to cap­ture more busi­ness from the Unit­ed King­dom and Eu­rope, with an ex­pand­ed re­gion­al mar­ket­ing dri­ve planned for 2027 fol­low­ing its largest Caribbean pres­ence at World Trav­el Mar­ket (WTM) Lon­don in about two decades.

The strat­e­gy will tar­get air­lines, tour op­er­a­tors, trav­el dis­trib­u­tors and con­sumers through ex­pand­ed des­ti­na­tion road­shows, trade en­gage­ment and mar­ket­ing, as the re­gion seeks stronger mar­ket ac­cess and a greater share of Eu­ro­pean tourism spend­ing.

The CTO is al­so turn­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket re­search to help Caribbean des­ti­na­tions adapt to chang­ing Eu­ro­pean trav­el pref­er­ences, with a joint work­ing pa­per be­ing de­vel­oped with con­sult­ing firm ICF to iden­ti­fy op­por­tu­ni­ties for tourism de­vel­op­ment, in­vest­ment and des­ti­na­tion po­si­tion­ing.

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the CTO out­lined the out­comes of its No­vem­ber 3-5 par­tic­i­pa­tion at WTM Lon­don, where sev­en na­tion­al tourism or­gan­i­sa­tions and sev­en com­mer­cial part­ners ex­hib­it­ed un­der the re­gion­al Caribbean Pavil­ion.

An­oth­er sev­en CTO mem­ber des­ti­na­tions main­tained in­de­pen­dent ex­hi­bi­tion stands, giv­ing the re­gion a sub­stan­tial pres­ence at the in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el mar­ket­place.

The ex­pand­ed pavil­ion brought to­geth­er the An­guil­la Tourist Board, Grena­da Tourism Au­thor­i­ty, Nevis Tourism Au­thor­i­ty, St Kitts Tourism Au­thor­i­ty, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Tourism Au­thor­i­ty and To­ba­go Tourism Agency Ltd. The Aru­ba Tourism Au­thor­i­ty al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed.

The Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Bermu­da, Guyana, Ja­maica and Saint Lu­cia main­tained their own ex­hi­bi­tion spaces.

Flo­ri­an Valmy-Dev­illers, di­rec­tor of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment for the CTO Chap­ter UK & Eu­rope, iden­ti­fied the next chal­lenge as con­vert­ing the re­gion’s col­lec­tive vis­i­bil­i­ty in­to com­mer­cial re­turns.

The chap­ter’s 2027 pro­gramme will in­clude more des­ti­na­tion road­shows, in­ter­na­tion­al trade en­gage­ment, con­sumer mar­ket­ing, me­dia out­reach and in­dus­try train­ing. Build­ing stronger re­la­tion­ships with air­lines, tour op­er­a­tors and trav­el dis­trib­u­tors will al­so be a pri­or­i­ty.

Be­yond mar­ket­ing, the CTO is ex­am­in­ing how Caribbean des­ti­na­tions can re­main com­pet­i­tive as Eu­ro­pean trav­ellers place greater val­ue on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, au­then­tic cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences and re­spon­si­ble tourism.

About 30 Caribbean tourism min­is­ters, chief ex­ec­u­tives, tourism di­rec­tors and se­nior in­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives at­tend­ed the No­vem­ber 5 CTO-ICF Tourism Vi­sion­ar­ies Cir­cle at the Sun­born Lon­don Yacht Ho­tel.

Held un­der the theme, “What Does Eu­rope Want Next? Reimag­in­ing the Caribbean for the Con­scious Trav­el­er”, the dis­cus­sion ex­am­ined how the re­gion could re­spond to shift­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences while en­sur­ing tourism gen­er­ates greater ben­e­fits for lo­cal busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties.

Trav­el tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Amadeus pre­sent­ed re­search on Eu­ro­pean trav­eller be­hav­iour and emerg­ing mar­ket trends, while Trav­el­zoo ex­am­ined dif­fer­ences be­tween US and Eu­ro­pean trav­ellers and the op­por­tu­ni­ties these present for Caribbean des­ti­na­tions.

The find­ings and dis­cus­sions will in­form the forth­com­ing CTO-ICF work­ing pa­per, which is in­tend­ed to pro­vide prac­ti­cal guid­ance on des­ti­na­tion de­vel­op­ment, po­si­tion­ing and in­vest­ment.

CTO Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Dona Reg­is-Pros­per al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in WTM’s Ex­pe­ri­ence Hub ses­sion, “Ready Be­fore the Rush”, which ex­am­ined how des­ti­na­tions could pre­pare for tourism growth with­out plac­ing un­sus­tain­able pres­sure on in­fra­struc­ture, nat­ur­al re­sources and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the WTM Min­is­ters’ Sum­mit, or­gan­ised in col­lab­o­ra­tion with UN Tourism and the World Trav­el & Tourism Coun­cil. The meet­ing brought to­geth­er 60 min­is­ters to dis­cuss

Cli­mate re­silience al­so fea­tured promi­nent­ly in the CTO’s Lon­don en­gage­ments.

On No­vem­ber 4, CTO deputy di­rec­tor of sus­tain­able tourism Naren­dra Ramgu­lam par­tic­i­pat­ed in an ICF Tourism Vi­sion­ar­ies Cir­cle dis­cus­sion on prepar­ing des­ti­na­tions and tourism busi­ness­es for cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­rup­tions.

Ramgu­lam warned that cli­mate ex­po­sure was be­com­ing a di­rect threat to the re­gion’s tourism com­pet­i­tive­ness and long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.