The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) is looking to attract a large number of tourism professionals and visitors to the region, after recent hurricane storms disrupted tourism efforts.

"We’re still open for business" says the CTO, which is developing social media campaigns to get the message out targeting trade partners, such as tour operators, media and travel agents, as well as consumers to raise awareness of the destinations where it has been business as usual since the storms.

“It’s important to remember that over 75 per cent of the Caribbean was not affected at all by the hurricanes, and those affected were impacted in varying degrees. Therefore, more than 75 per cent of our countries are still open for business, while others are making progress with the reopening or airports, for example.  The best way to help the Caribbean is to visit the Caribbean.” said CTO secretary general Hugh Riley.
 
Fund campaigns on all levels have been launched to support the communities from affected islands such as Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Dominica, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, St. Barts, Turks and Caicos Islands, and St. Martin as many of these countries depend on tourism.
 
At WTM London, the CTO and the leading experts in destinations’ traffic and profiling of visitors, ForwardKeys, will host a press conference on November 6 at 3pm – 4pm at the North Gallery room NG5.
 
The event is an opportunity to share in exclusivity the latest trends for the Christmas period and beginning of the winter season 2017-2018 as well as the positive growth above 5 per cent in bookings for future arrivals despite the tragic series of recent hurricanes.
 
CTO is also planning to train travel agents, run the Caribbean Media Awards and the Caribbean sunset hour. Moreover, the chairman, Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar will take part of the Interview Wall at the Media Centre on Wednesday 8th at 3.30pm.
 
The Caribbean will also be represented at the Ministerial Summit.
 
In 2016, about 1.2 million Brits visited the Caribbean, an increase of 4.1 per cent when compared to 2015.
 
World Travel Market London, senior director, Simon Press, said: “Caribbean is a very popular region at WTM London. We’re delighted to support the CTO in its campaign to show the Caribbean is ‘open for business’. WTM is the perfect platform for the Caribbean to promote all it has to offer to the global travel industry.” - TradeArabia News Service