The Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) along with its private sector partners in the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association (AHATA), announced that the island has been picked as host for the 28th Annual Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) Marketplace 2007 to be held from January 14 to 16. The choice of Aruba as the host nation for next year´s Caribbean Marketplace marks the first time ever a destination has been unanimously chosen by all CHA members and the first time that the host country has been handpicked more than six months prior to the event.

Bermuda will teach the rest of the Caribbean to be more sustainable at an upcoming multinational Environment Forum, Premier Alex Scott said on Monday. At a press conference in Cabinet, Mr. Scott said he would be the keynote speaker at a Caribbean Environmental Forum and Exhibition (CEF) in Antigua and Barbuda from June 5 to June 9.

The Association of British Travel Agents has announced that its 2006 ABTA Travel Convention will now be held in Marbella, Spain from November 27 to 29. The event had been planned to take place in Athens from November 23 to 25. ABTA President Justin Fleming commented, “We had planned to hold our Convention in Athens this year but due to a number of local changes in the last few months we feel it would be better to do this in another year. I am delighted that we have secured the convention facilities in Marbella where we held our very successful 1998 Convention.”

The opening of the largest IMEX ever, with 3,300 exhibitors from 150 countries occupying Messe Frankfurt´s Hall 8 and filling a record 16,500 square meters of floor space, came to an end in Germany. With 3,400 hosted buyers and several thousand trade visitors from Germany and the rest of the world attending the three-day gathering, IMEX 2006 panned out to be the biggest and busiest to date.

Destinations from Canada to Argentina are pleased with their tourism growth but are also aware that they will need to fight to maintain it. The way forward should be focused on strengthening tourism and media relationships, capacity sharing and especially branding of destinations, as was underscored by the Regional Conference on Tourism Communications (TOURCOM) for the Americas, which concluded in Rosario, Argentina. More than 600 delegates attended the event, which rounded up the World Tourism Organization´s (UNWTO) regional conferences on tourism communications, following the First World Conference TOURCOM, held in January 2004 in Madrid.

In recognition of the exceptionally high standard of entries for this year´s IMEX Green Meetings Awards, which were held in partnership with the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) for the first time, two separate awards have been made to winners. Judges made the decision to present a Gold Award in honor of the meticulous level of “green” planning and awareness building that went into the U.S. Green Build International Conference and Expo 2004.