Affonso-Dass calls for renewed focus on hospitality during Caribbean Travel Marketplace
Breaking Travel News | January 30, 2019
President of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, Patricia Affonso-Dass, hailed the diversity, incredible natural beauty and people as core strengths of the region as she called for it to be better known as the most welcoming in the world. Kicking off the 37th annual Caribbean Travel Marketplace, the Caribbean’s largest tourism marketing event, in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the Barbados-based hotelier said it was time to change the way the world references the region. She added: “We are the most tourism-dependent in the world, as well as the world’s most desirable, most tolerant and inclusive, most welcoming, most hospitable, most facilitative and investment-friendly, and most environmentally sensitive.” Speaking on behalf of the region’s pre-eminent private sector trade association and its 33 national hotel and tourism associations, the president warmly welcomed delegates to the conference. Caribbean Travel Marketplace is hosting the largest group of buyers in its history from the widest number of countries. Sixty new buyer companies out of about 145 have joined the conference this year and CHTA is welcoming the largest contingent of Chinese travel buyers to date along with new buyer companies from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.