Anguilla will be represented at the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Industry Conference (SOIC) to be hosted by the Comité Martiniquais du Tourisme, from October 15-18, 2013. Held this year under the theme, “Perfecting the Experience, Delivering Authenticity”, the State of the Industry Conference is the CTO’s industry convocation of Caribbean tourism practitioners and strategic partners. It builds on the success of the Leadership Strategy Conference and satisfies a need felt among the membership, including travel agent partners, for such a gathering, annually.
Anguilla’s representatives, the HonourableMr Haydn Hughes, Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Tourism, Mrs Candis Niles, Director of Tourism, Mrs. Twyla Richardson-Thomas, Marketing Officer of the ATB, and Ms. Christina Baez, Public Relations specialist with the ATB’s North America representatives, Cheryl Andrews Marketing Communications, will join attendees from around the Caribbean who are employed in the Caribbean tourism and tourism-related industries, including Ministers, Commissioners and Directors of Tourism as well as key personnel from Customs and Immigration, Air Transportation, Finance and the private sector. Also present will be representatives from non-government allied partners and CTO travel agent Chapter members. The conference will be preceded by two days of business meetings for CTO executives, and will include an opportunity for destinations to meet with members of the international media for 20-minute individual destination press briefings.
A cadre of highly distinguished speakers will be featured over the two-day event, focusing on topics such as Product Differentiation, Intra-Caribbean Tourism, Technology and the Bottom-Line, and issues pertaining to Air Access. The key-note address will be delivered by Mr Daniel Levine, Executive Director of the Avant-Garde Institute on the topic, “Delivering more Perfect Visitor Experiences – How to Turn Authenticity into Greater Visitor Numbers”
A highly anticipated segment of the conference will be dedicated to the Youth through the Tourism Youth Congress which brings together young people from across the region to debate matters pertaining to tourism from their unique perspectives as “junior” Ministers of Tourism for their countries.Structured to mirror a CTO Board of Directors’ Meeting, its main aim is to stimulate greater awareness and excitement about tourism among young people in our Caribbean communities, by allowing them to research various facets of the tourism sector and share their ideas and vision with respect to future directions for Caribbean Tourism. This year the topics include a choice of “Multigenerational Travel” or “Caribbean Agri-Tourism…there’s more to it than visiting the farms!”. A Mystery Topic will also be presented at the Youth Congress, and each participant will be given one minute to respond to the question. Anguilla will be represented by Tourism Club students, Malik Richards, who is Anguilla’s Junior Minister of Tourism, and Aurielle Gaskin, who will accompany him as Deputy Junior Minister.
