Q & A with Julia Hendry, European Marketing Director for the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)

Julia Hendry has put a 30-plus-year experience under her belt while working in the Caribbean’s travel and tourism industry, both in the private and public sectors. She’s one of the most authorized voices in the region in this respect and now that she’s ready to go into semiretirement, she’s also willing to share her valuable knowledge with the new breed of leaders. In this exclusive interview with Caribbean News Digital, Mrs. Hendry, who’s still the European marketing director for CTO, reminisces about the past and looks to the future of Caribbean tourism in the face of economic hardships.

Q.- What’s your current position within CTO and what will your next post be in it?
A.- My current position is European Marketing Director for the Caribbean Tourism Organization, which is based in London. I’ve been employed by CTO for the past six years and my career in the industry has been spanning for over 30 years. In March my time for taking life a little bit easier will come in and I’ve made an appointment for my successor to start on April 1.

Now, you’re asking about my plans after April 1. I’m going to take life a little bit easier, so I have no immediate plans. I’ll be going into semiretirement and enjoy some extra leisure time. However, I’m still going to make myself available for projects either in the Caribbean or anywhere else in the leisure industry, should an appointment come my way.

Q.- How do you assess your tenure of six years in CTO and the achievements you’ve made in bringing CTO and the travel industry closer together?
A.- The role at CTO is quite a complex one because we represent 33 member countries and these countries have all their different stages of tourism developments and marketing specifications. At CTO we’ve never taken over the role of the individual tourist boards, but we rather work very closely with them. I see our role more like a role of facilitation, to bring people together to promote the region, to promote the Caribbean region generically, and by bringing people together to promote the region, we can reach a profile by making the sum of the individuals greater than the activities they could conduct for themselves. So, it’s very much a facilitation role.

I think our achievements over the past six years have been our relationship with our private-sector partners in Europe. Certainly, within the United Kingdom we have a very strong UK chapter in which we have over 130 members of the UK chapter which are part of both the private and the public sectors. They are working together to put forward a very strong calendar of promotional events. That means we can leverage our funds and leverage our budgets, so we can help smaller destinations, the smallest islands to maintain a larger profile within the marketplace and we can assist those countries that already have strong marketing relationships to advertise the diversity of the region by making the profile of the region greater.

That makes us take advantage, not only within the United Kingdom where we already have a presence in the Latin American market, but also throughout Europe because we have representation in France, in Italy, in Spain and we have recently launched a website in five different European languages. So, I think we’ve been taking great strides over the last six years in enhancing the profile of the region and developing our relationships.

Q.- Multidestination has become a hot issue in recent years, and the topic has turned out to be the talk of meetings and congresses. However, there have been snags on the road to consolidate multidestination plans that really work. What do you think about that? Do you believe intraregional air transportation is the key to success?
A.- Intraregional air transportation is important for the development of multidestination and I think there’ll be an increasing importance placed on this as people would be wanting to make the most of their traveling experiences, both in terms of value for their money and in terms of seeing more of what our islands have to offer. European visitors travel a long distance and they want to be able to see more than just one destination, and that for the Caribbean is a great advantage.

I think the other thing we need to promote in the region –and that’s something we’re very conscious of within CTO Europe- is the diversity of the region. When we attend tradeshows and fairs in Europe, in Spain, for instance, we notice that Spaniards do know about the Spanish-speaking countries but they don’t know about the diversity of the rest of the Caribbean. When we’re in France we notice that French visitors do know about the French Caribbean, but not necessarily about the rest of the region.

That means we have a lot of work to do in informing our visitors about the diversity of the region, let alone the need to have a viable intraregional air transportation system in place.

Q.- The Caribbean area is well known in Europe and around the world for being a wonderful region, its climate. However, there’s been a trend going on in recent years to promote things other than tradition tourism, such as culture, heritage, history and other values of our islands.
A.- I strongly believe the Caribbean’s rich culture and history can very well be mixed to further exploit the markets, whether that’d be through festivals, through their music, their cuisine or their very history.

Q.- The world is going through some tough times. What do you expect from this year and what are going to be the points you’ll put before your successor in CTO?
A.- In the face of difficult economic situations, in moments when all of our resources –whether be financial or management- are tight things have to work. Every hour we spend, every marketing dollar we spend has to work and I think this is where the CTO has advantage in bringing people together. We can leverage funds and if people work together they can get quite simply more results. If people in the region get together in the promotional activities, such as in the dealings in marketplaces like this one, if we can make sure that we’re going to work with the other islands in creating more publicity, more opportunities for the region by working together, I think we can work this out.

I believe there’s never been a more important time to work together and I think quite honestly the Caribbean is quite unique in that. We support 33 different destinations and I can’t think of any other region in the world that has such an advantage towards its individual nations to come together and work together to promote the region for their common benefits.

Q.- You said that you’re going into semiretirement and that you’re going to start working on some projects later on, that you’ll be available to share your valuable experience with CTO members. Tell us a tad more about this.
A.- I think and I hope that will be the case, either in Europe or in the region. Having been in the industry for over 30 years, both in the private and public sectors, I’d like to think that I’ve gained lots of different experiences in different environments, and I’d be very, very happy to share that and it’ll be a privilege for me to be able to do that.