Willemstad, October 19th 2015 – CHATA organized this year’s last member meeting at Santa Barbara Beach & Golf Resort. The member meeting is meant to enlighten CHATA members through guest speakers whom address issues of importance to the Tourism & Hospitality industry. The keynote speaker during this informative meeting was Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) CEO & Director General, Frank Comito. Comito’s keynote speech was followed by CHATA and Van Eps Kunneman & Van Doorne, which elaborated on Local Tourism & Hospitality and employment law, respectively.
The CHTA Executive kicked off the meeting by providing the attendees of the CHATA Member meeting with an insight on the activities of the CHTA on Caribbean level. Comito provided the attendees to the meeting with data and trends in the Caribbean, and uttered his satisfaction on the increase of arrivals in the Caribbean. Comito states that Curaçao pertains to the Caribbean’s hot destination with record-breaking arrival growth.
Comito uttered the importance for Curaçao to focus on incentive programs to function as an encouragement of Foreign Direct Investment in the Tourism & Hospitality industry. Research in tourism & hospitality should be fact driven rather than emotion driven in order to foster tourism growth. According to Frank Comito, the outlook for tourism in the Caribbean is bright but challenges abound and collaboration is key regionally and locally.
CHATA’s Miles Mercera presented the figures of Flavors of Curaçao and announced the dates for Flavors of Curaçao 2016 that will be taking place on October 28th and 29th. Mercera addressed market specific trends and product trends for the future and indicated how hotel rooms should look like in 2020. Mercera presented a sneak peek of CHATA’s new website and Small Accommodation Marketing platform which are due for launch in January 2016. In the light of the Small Accommodation Marketing Platform, CHATA announced its partnership with Atraveo in order to ensure enhanced performance for CHATA affiliated small accommodations.
The concluding speech was delivered by Molly Steward, Partner at Van Eps Kunneman & Van Doorne. Steward presented key topics which should be considered by employers when hiring personnel, with Tourism & Hospitality specific cases provided as an example. Steward’s speech was succeeded by Senior Associate, Kimberley de L’isle whom provided the guests with insights and tips holding relation to employment law, for future Human Resource considerations of CHATA members.