Wednesday, September 6 2006

THE CARIBBEAN’S travel and tourism industry’s leading decision makers will headline the fifth anniversary of the Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx), set for Coco Resorts and other participating properties in St Lucia from October 12-16, 2006.

Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, will keynote the conference on “Taking Tourism to the Next Level” as he defines the future of Caribbean tourism and explores first class Caribbean quality standards.

Throughout the conference delegates will examine sustainable tourism development through the lens of the theme “Chic Communications Concepts” for culinary, cultural, health, sports, and village tourism linkages. The conference also will focus on HIV/AIDS and what’s needed to mitigate the impact of the disease and others on regional populations.

Also attending the ninth four-day version of CMEx, which has been staged on 13 occasions in less than five years, will be the top brass of the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) – both the newly installed Barbadian president Peter Odle and Director General Alec Sanguinetti — who will join CHA Chairman Berthia Parle, who hails from St Lucia.

“CMEx is a one-of-a-kind professional development opportunity for the Caribbean hospitality industry to communicate better and establish a more effective working relationship with the media.

As tourism professionals, we must learn to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the media, to enable them to report accurately and in-depth. We invite CHA members to join us at the upcoming CMEx meeting in St Lucia,” appealed CHA’s communications director, Lorraine J Ortiz-Valcárcel, one of CMEx’s early advocates who also will be in attendance.

Counterpart International’s president, Lelei LeLaulu, thanked CHA for its continued support of CMEx, and national tourism boards, like the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, and the Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Development Company, for supporting the CMEx process beyond their hosting of the conference.

“This demonstrates a unique commitment to the process,” said LeLaulu, who welcomed former CMEx hosts to join the fifth anniversary talks in St Lucia, who will become two-time hosts of the biannual meeting.

According to James Hepple, President and Director of Tourism of the Trinidad and Tobago Tourism Development Company, “I have been involved with CMEx since its inception (October 2001) and have seen it become one of the most influential forums for presenting the value and importance of Caribbean tourism to not only local journalists but those based outside the Caribbean.

As a Director of Tourism, I find it invaluable that we can send our own journalists to CMEx (as) they come back understanding the industry, resulting in more informed coverage.”