CHA, WTTC sign agreement for the Caribbean

The Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) and the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) met in Hamilton, Bermudas, to ink a three-year-term exchange agreement to foster the industry’s development and put together a joint policymaking committee dealing with tourism in the Caribbean Basin.

The signing of the agreement took place within the framework of the 7th Conference on Hotel Investment and Caribbean Tourism that came to a close this weekend in Hamilton, the Bermudan capital.

WTTC chairman Jean Claude Baumgarten boded stronger ties between both entities as a result of a planned strategy.

CHA deputy chairwoman Berthia Parle said the alliance will reap great benefits for a sector that’s been hit hard by the worldwide economic downfall and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The ongoing war unleashed by Washington against Iraq has already prompted a plunge in Caribbean-bound travel, especially on the part of U.S. tourists, the country that provides the biggest chunk of vacationers to the region.