CTO Americas

Interim Marketing Report

October 2007 – April 2008

Overview

The marketing activity of CTO’s New York office has become the function of the Caribbean Tourism Development Company (CTDC) the marketing and business development entity that is equally owned by the CHA and CTO. CTDC, whose mandate is to Promote, Protect, Advance and Enhance the Caribbean brand, has assumed that responsibility through enlisting the services of the marketing/publishing staff of CHA and the entire staff of CTO New York, as well as a cadre of contractor relationships. While the contractors have been enlisted by signed agreements, no formal arrangement has to date been concluded between CTDC and the staff of CHA or CTO. Those arrangements are being worked out and will be formalized during the second quarter of 2008 as CHA grapples with its new realities and CTO itself undergoes changes.

A number of legal and administrative matters continued to engage the staff of CTO New York during the period under review. Those matters related primarily to:

  • The transition of staff from CTO Barbados to CTO-USA, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of CTO Barbados
  • The transfer of all contracts and vendor agreements from CTO Barbados to CTO-USA, Inc
  • The Transition from CTO Chapters in the U.S to a community of Caribbean Travel Specialists whose relationship will be with CTDC
  • The drafting of an agreement that will establish a legal, arm’s length relationship between the various entities
  • The exchange of proposals that could establish a sales management relationship between CHA/Gold Book Publishing staff and CTDC

The marketing activities outlined below are the work of CTDC and the companies with which CTDC has specific contractual arrangements. It should be mentioned here that the relationship between CTDC and Creative Travel Consultants, whose principal – Warren Binder - was the Business Consultant to CTDC, ended in March.

Summary of 2007/2008 projects underway at April 30, 2008

  1. We continued to aggressively promote the Caribbean Brand represented by our new nine-color Caribbeanlogo. We have been insistent on the logo’s prominence in whatever materials and web presence we produce with our various business partners.

Some of our member countries have also been including the logo in their advertising and collateral materials. However, considerably more work has to be done to convince both the public sector and private sector members of CTDC to use the Caribbean logo as a means of clearly identifying with the Caribbean and providing an implied endorsement of the brand.

Meanwhile, we have begun arrangements to expand the range of merchandize currently bearing the Caribbean brand. The plan is to engage the services of experienced companies that will create, distribute and sell high-quality, Caribbean-branded merchandize to retail outlets in the Caribbean.

  1. CaribbeanTravel.com – The Magazine. This is the former Gold Book. A redesigned and refreshed, 284-page directory is now distributed to almost all US, Canadian and UK travel agencies. All our member countries are featured editorially. The Spring/Summer issue currently under production will be the final one to have direct involvement by CHA’s Gold Book Publishing. Thereafter, the publication will be taken over by Questex Publishing, the publisher of Travel Agent Magazine.
  1. CaribbeanTravel.com – The Website. The website went into soft-launch mode to the travel trade at CTC-30 in Puerto Rico last fall and was subsequently launched to the consumer media on March 13 in New York City. The site is a portal to all CTDC members. It features a Travelocity booking engine; Google search appliance; Hot Deals; Destination Image Library; Caribbean Blog; Travel Specialist Database; Life Needs The Caribbean promotion and more. We have begun negotiations to place a range of villa product on the site in the second half of 2008.

Our New York office is responsible for the management of the site, while the maintenance is in the hands of Constructive Media of Vancouver, BC. Search engine marketing, public relations efforts, special events, and direct marketing via e-mail have been the main thrusts behind publicizing the website. However, budget permitting, an advertising campaign – online and offline – will be created and run later in 2008.

Meanwhile, the visitor traffic has been growing.

  • In March 2008, there were 143,050 unique visitors to
  • The average time website visitors spent on the website was 12 minutes, 17 seconds
  • Total website traffic increased by 49% over March 2007, logging 185,575 visitor sessions
  • Year to date, 38% more traffic came to the website compared to year to date March 2007
  • Traffic from Linkage Partnerships has increased 45% from March 2007
  1. Another round of Caribbean branded newspaper inserts will be launched on May 30th; this round is under the new CTDC arrangement with the Custom Marketing Group. The inserts (16-24 pages) will appear in major newspapers in the New York Metropolitan Area, as well as Philadelphia, Chicago and South Florida. The target is just over one million households with income of $75,000 and over.

Our NY staff coordinated and manned Caribbean Pavilions and booths at trade and consumer events in New York, Boston, Washington, DC, Long Beach, California and Atlanta during the period under review.

  1. ACTS 2008 – Annual Caribbean Tourism Summit in Washington, DC, June 21-24. Alan Greenspan has been secured as the keynote speaker. This event combines tourism investment, marketing and political opportunities. We created a website and have begun to promote the event. In addition to the business meetings of the CHA and CTO, ACTS will feature panel discussions, workshops, a motivational brunch, a wedding, a gala banquet and awards evening, and a Rum & Rhythm Festival.
  1. Planning is in progress for Caribbean Week in Toronto, scheduled for September 23-30.To build upon last year’s success we have again enlisted the support of the Toronto Star newspaper and have contacted various corporate sponsors including the Destiny Group of companies, our 2007 title sponsor.
  1. Conde Nast Bridal Media – Brides and Modern Bride Magazines sixteen-page advertising section titled Passport to the Caribbean was launched in March and April 2008 in the two magazines, together with an online component. The promotion involved special deals for CTDC members who advertised and editorial coverage for all member countries. Discussion has begun on the creation of a Fall 2008 version. Meanwhile, the Conde Nast Bridal Media ; website agreement; and promotion in the Dream House. The selling of this phase has been completed and the April/May magazines are on the shelves. All member countries are featured editorially. For those that also advertised in the magazines, CTDC negotiated rates which the individual countries and hotels could not otherwise have acquired.
  1. QUESTEX is the publisher ofTravel AgentMagazine and is the company that won the bid to publish CaribbeanTravel.com The Magazine. Questex will also collaborate with us in the surveying, training, qualifying and rewarding of travel agents in the U.S and Canada who will become part of the Caribbean Travel Specialist group. The intention is to make the Caribbean Travel Specialists a community of productive travel agents to replace the current CTO Chapter system.
  1. The Caribbean Beach Volley Ball Tournament will this year encompass ten cities along the east coast of the U.S. and end with the Championship finals on November 8th and 9th in Puerto Plata,Dominican Republic. We are continuing to develop our relationship with Albert Hanneman’s Volleyball Vacations, the company that has already produced volleyball vacation groups to Turks & Caicos Islands (120 passengers) and Cayman Islands (50). The intent is for the Caribbean to become the exclusive destination for Hanneman’s beach volleyball groups.
  1. WCBS TV – New York metropolitan area. We created an arrangement under which the Caribbean would have prominence for six months on the CBS TV travel website, which would drive traffic to CaribbeanTravel.com. To get started, this promotion needs a total of six destination/hotel participants. To date only four have signed up.
  1. Caribbean Travel & Life – designated “Official Consumer Magazine of the Caribbean”. The Caribbean logo appears on front cover of every issue. Caribbean Travel & Life content has been used in our newspaper inserts and on our CaribbeanTravel.com website. Other benefits of this relationship are being negotiated.

Regional Marketing Fund

At the time of writing this report only ten countries had paid any money to the Regional Marketing Fund in 2008, for a total of $937,000; and some of those funds were arrears. This is a long way from the $2.6 million we would have available for funding the programs of CTDC if all members paid. The Regional Marketing Fund is also a funding source for UK/Europe.

The projects listed above require ongoing funding for their expansion and proper development. In addition, our website cannot be properly sold to advertisers and effectively promoted, and a list of proposed projects such as the creation of a Caribbean sales team, a branded credit card, a television production, Diaspora Marketing, Official Products of the Caribbean, Miss Caribbean Pageant and numerous other revenue-generating programs cannot be implemented under the current financial conditions.

2008 CTO New York Trade Show and Conference Activities

January 12-13Adventures in Travel Expo New York, NY

January 13-15Caribbean Marketplace Paradise Island, Bahamas

January 26-27Adventures in Travel Expo Chicago, IL

February 3-4Baltimore Bridal Showcase Baltimore, MD

February 9-10Adventures in Travel Expo/Los Angeles Times Travel Show Long Beach, CA

February 22-24Boston Globe Travel Show Boston, MA

February 29-March 2New York Times Travel Show New York, NY

March 7-9Cruise3Sixty Fort Lauderdale, FL

March 29-30Adventures in Travel Expo Washington, DC

April 27-29 Travelocity Partner Conference Orlando, FL

April 28 – May 110th Sustainable Development Conference Turks & Caicos Is.

May 6-8Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Investment Conference Port-of-Spain, Trinidad

May 20 Meeting of the Caribbean Public Relations Council New York, NY

May 21 Meeting of the Caribbean Diaspora Leaders & Influencers New York, NY

May 21-23CTO Human Resources Conference Tortola, BVI

June 10-13Association of Travel Marketing Executives Conference Las Vegas, NV

June 16-19Vacation.com International Conference & Trade Show New Orleans, LA

June 21-241st ANNUAL CARIBBEAN TOURISM SUMMIT Washington, DC

September 23-25The Motivation Show (formerly IT&ME) ChicagoIL

October Caribbean Tourism Conference on Research & IT TBA

November 8 & 9CaribbeanBeach Volleyball Championship Finals Dominican Republic

November 8 Caribbean Hotel Association Crystal Palm Awards London, UK

November 10-13 World Travel Market London, UK

November 17-18Philadelphia Enquirer/Daily News Travel Show Philadelphia, PA

Public Relations

Our public relations agency, New York based Lou Hammond & Associates has now held our account for six months and in that period has made significant progress in raising the awareness of the Caribbean.