The Caribbean Tourism Organisation has hailed the success of its London showcase held on September 21.
The showcase was attended by individual Caribbean island tourism boards, hoteliers and airlines, and was held at the Leonardo Royal Hotel.
Valmy-Devillers, director of business development for the CTO, praised the turnout and said he hopes the event will have prompted new package holiday concepts which will entice tourists and boost visitor numbers following the pandemic.
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“The Caribbean showcase has been great,” he told Travel Weekly. “We have had more than 20 suppliers and 30 buyers attend, totalling more than 200 meetings over the course of the day.
“The Caribbean is a very big region and it is our job as a tourism board to bring synergy among the islands and get visibility for the smaller destinations, as well as the larger, more popular ones.
“Bringing suppliers and buyers together means people are leaving with new package ideas and will create new holidays for those people interested in visiting.”
The CTO plans to unveil a special offers section on its website in the coming weeks, which it will populate with deals for travel agents to pass on to their customers.
Valmy-Devillers said: “As part of our caribbean.co.uk website, we are launching a special offers portal for agents.
“Our members, which include tour operators, airlines and cruise lines, can upload their offers onto the portal which will then be seen by agents who can pass the offers on to their customers.
“We want our website to become the go to place for agents.”
“The Caribbean is recovering well from the pandemic, but as we are such a tourism-dependant region, we want to do all we can to boost visitor numbers.”
In addition, the CTO revealed plans to launch a consumer campaign, and said now is the time to “really push” the Caribbean.
“This year, we are also launching the Caribbean Time campaign to tell people it is time they come back to the region and enjoy all it has to offer,” Valmy-Deviller said.
“Over the next few weeks, we will launch a digital and cross channel consumer marketing campaign to raise awareness of the destination.”