Q & A with Alec Sanguinetti, President of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA)

Q & A with Alec Sanguinetti
President of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA)

By Yndiana Montes and Jose Carlos de Santiago

What’s your opinion of the new political situation in other areas of the world and how they play out for the benefits of the Caribbean? What’s happening, for example, in the Middle East? Do you think that we’re going to take advantage of that?
The Caribbean historically has been known for its political stability and as a peaceful region. We have been able to maintain that and it’s a great advantage for us. We’ve always been seen as a fun-loving, enjoyable and hospitable region.   

What are you doing in terms of training and upgrading the human resources?
You know, we have in terms of cuisine the Taste of the Caribbean, which is all about improving our culinary skills in the Caribbean and the competition this year takes place in June. We also have our Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association Education Foundation which, since 1987, has been able to award over million dollars worth in scholarships and, on average, we award about forty scholarships a year to students who want to make a career in the tourism industry. So, we continue to place a great deal of emphasis on training within the Caribbean, particularly, at the student level to encourage them to seek a career in this industry.

What new strategy are you considering to open different markets for the Caribbean Hotel Association, for example, the Russian market?
Our hotels are working with the Parliament of tourism in the governments so to go after this market and put the visitors in charter flights from Russia. The hotels in Punta Cana are very much into that. In Barbados, hoteliers have worked with the Barbados Tourism Authority to open up the markets from Brazil and they now have a weekly flight, which is going to be two flights a week this coming winter. Hoteliers are always looking for new markets and supporting tourism activities in those areas.

Are you going to attend the MIT or Leisure shows in Moscow?
We have plans to be there. We get out of it what you put into it. As you know, the former Eastern European bloc have churned out new markets, new and emerging markets and they themselves are becoming tourism markets for people to visit. So, likewise, they want to visit other countries. You see countries like Jamaica and Dominican Republic go after these markets and they are being successful.

Can you tell us about the investment conference that is going to take place in Jamaica? What are your expectations for this conference? How many delegates are going to attend? Do you think that it’s going to be a good conference? Last year, the conference was very good.
We are looking for a good conference. We have about three hundred delegates, including investors, financiers, developers, bankers and we’ve got some very good keynote speakers lined up for the conference. What are we are trying to achieve at the conference is to make it easier for investors to come and invest in the Caribbean. That’s all we want to achAnd we have investors coming from which countries?
Several countries: Mexico, countries from Latin America and North America, England, Europe, we have a gentleman coming from China.