KINGSTON, Jamaica -- At a press conference held Thursday in Kingston, Jamaica, the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) announced that Caribbean Marketplace 2011 will be held at the new Montego Bay Convention Centre from Jan. 16-18, 2011 and will be presented by CHTA, the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), the Jamaica Tourist Board, MasterCard and Virgin Holidays.

Caribbean Marketplace is the requisite business-to-business marketing event for the Caribbean hotel and tourism industry which follows the “All Tourism, All Caribbean, All Business” mantra throughout the entire program. At Caribbean Marketplace, hoteliers meet, network, negotiate and conduct business with buyers from around the world.

CHTA anticipates that Caribbean Marketplace 2011 will achieve similar success as the recent year’s Caribbean Marketplace conferences and expects an even larger turnout for 2011. In 2010 there were 1,362 delegates, just 10.5% off of the recent high of 1,521 attendees in 2009, as well as over 402 booths, 268 buyer delegates and 847 supplier delegates.

“We believe that Caribbean Marketplace 2011 will be even stronger as tourism officials, hoteliers and tour operators gather to plan the recovery of tourism to our region,” said Enrique De Marchena Kaluche, President of CHTA, at today’s press conference. “Unlike many events, where participation decreases during tough times, we need Caribbean Marketplace now more than ever before. The less than optimal state of our industry should actually have a positive effect on attendance for Caribbean Marketplace,” he added.

Continuing, De Marchena also said, “For our hoteliers, we rely on the support of our tour operators in order to capture the largest possible share of the market. At the same time, the tour operators need to engage our hotels with lucrative contracts that will help us all profit during these tough times.

“At the end of the day, the business we receive during this difficult period will be determined by our willingness to work with each other to maximize our marketing of the region. Caribbean Marketplace is all about how we can market the Caribbean, both together and independently.

“The crucial piece of the success puzzle is the marketing of the product from the individual hotels, to the countries and to the region. It is a monumental task for a small hotel in Jamaica or anywhere in the Caribbean to promote itself to the world. Promotion of the Caribbean as a region is paramount to what we must first achieve. We need to ensure that the potential visitors know and appreciate that the Caribbean is the leading warm weather destination in the world. Once that is done, individual destinations such as Jamaica need to find their niche and stand out from our small crowd of islands and nations in the region.

“And finally, it is then up to the individual hotels to make sure that they are seen as the best product for the particular vacationers so that they get their fair share of the tourism pie,” De Marchena concluded.

“It is an honour for Virgin Holidays to return to the CHTA Caribbean Marketplace as a host for the third time,” said Amanda Wills, Managing Director of Virgin Holidays. “We look forward to making more valued connections with the many hundreds of attending delegates and companies at the event in Montego Bay as we work towards the common goal of retaining the Caribbean’s position as the most desirable tourism region in the world,” Wills noted.