Dame Billie Calls for Regional Campaign to Promote Single Travel Destination in the Caribbean

The recipient of this year´s highest honor from the Caribbean Tourism Organization, the CTO Lifetime Achievement Award, used her acceptance speech to make an impassioned plea for a regional campaign to promote the Caribbean as a single tourist destination.

Dame Billie Miller, the Barbados foreign affairs and foreign trade minister, told an audience of over 700 persons gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York for the CTO´s Governments of the Caribbean State Ball, that a joint campaign involving the public and private sectors is critical if the tourism sector is to become more competitive.

“As I did during the years when I presided over the CTO, ten years later, I still want to appeal to you. A regional advertising or promotional campaign is critical,” Dame Billie, the first-ever female chair of CTO, told the gathering at the black-tie gala event.

The ball is organized by the CTO each year as part of celebrations for Caribbean Week in New York to raise funds for the CTO Foundation, which provides scholarships to Caribbean nationals pursuing studies in tourism and hospitality-related areas.

Dame Billie upbraided both the public and private sectors for abandoning the concept despite a highly successful regional marketing campaign in 1993, which reversed a downward trend in visitor arrivals from North America.

In the same breath, Dame Billie assured the Caribbean tourism industry that its interests are being advanced in all regional and international trade negotiations.