Hilary Modeste, Antigua & Barbuda Tourism Director for the European Market

Q & A with Hilary Modeste, Antigua & Barbuda Tourism Director for the European Market
By Jose Carlos de Santiago – WTM 2011 (London)

Mr. Modeste sat down recently with Caribbean News Digital within the framework of WTM 2011 in London and spoke about Antigua & Barbuda's efforts to make the most of the islands' outbound markets. In this exclusive interview, Mr. Modeste talked about the European travel fairs and other interesting topics.

What are the main outbound markets from Europe to Antigua & Barbuda?
Our visitors from Europe mainly come out of the UK, which is our biggest market, followed by Italy and Germany. These are our three biggest markets. There is a big market out of the US as well, and also from Canada. But from the European point of view, our visitors are mainly from the UK, Italy and Germany.

What’s the scope of your businesses in Europe?
We do a lot of businesses in Europe. In the case of Italy, we do a lot of business with Press Tours, they are our main source of business. There are two flights now out of Milan, two charters flights on Blue Panorama and Neos also flies weekly into Antigua. In the winter, we have Condo flying weekly out of Frankfurt into Antigua. We have daily flights from the United Kingdom on Virgin Atlantic and British Airways into Antigua as well.

Do you usually visit ITB and the Moscow fairs?
Yes, we do attend ITB. We have not been exploring other markets in Europe at this point because, as you would know, we have cut down our operations and we’re cutting costs. So, what we are trying to do right now is to consolidate on the markets that we have, which in Europe are the UK, Italy and Germany. We’re trying to consolidate those markets now before we consider expanding into other markets.

Do you attend BTL in Milan?
Yes. Antigua and Barbuda was represented at the event.

What is your opinion about FITUR, the tradeshow in Spain?
I haven’t attended the tradeshow in Spain because, as I said, Spain is a very small market for us, there’s very little business coming out of Spain. So, we have not concentrated on this. Most of the hotels operating in Antigua have not done any business with Spain. So, we have not done this tradeshow.

But FITUR is not only for the Spanish market. It’s world’s second-largest tradeshow and is by far the best tradeshow for Latin America and for other countries in the Caribbean, and even in Europe. I suppose that’s something very important to bear in mind when it comes to opening different markets.
It’s possible and we could consider it. We could consider it when we are considering expanding our business, but we are constrained by finances and we are limited to the number of tradeshows we are doing right now. But into the future, maybe next year when things look better, we could consider doing that show in Spain.

Do you think that if CTO opens a Caribbean village in FITUR,this is going to be good for Antigua & Barbuda?
Yes, absolutely. We are looking at having more join participation because, as you know, we’re living in a world where everybody is now trying to decrease cost, but still get more and spend less. So, we are working with CTO as an organization and possibly when we are looking at all the tradeshows in Europe, we might well want to work with CTO in terms of our participation in those tradeshows through the umbrella of CTO.