By the Caribbean Journal staff

There’s a new way to get to Tortola.

Turks and Caicos-based InterCaribbean Airways has launched its new service between St Maarten and Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.

The service also includes onward connections to Santo Domingo, San Juan and Antigua.

The St Maarten-Tortola flights are operating through the middle of next month on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.

“interCaribbean is pleased to be able to quickly update our Sint Maarten start date to ensure the communities in St Maarten and in Santo Domingo have available air service options,” said Trevor Sadler, CEO for interCaribbean.

The post InterCaribbean Launches St Maarten-Tortola Flights appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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By Dana Niland
CJ Contributor

Caribbean tourism industry professional Stacy Cox has been elected president of the Caribbean Society of Hotel Association Executives for the next two years.

Cox took office early last year following an unscheduled leadership change, and has now received a full two-year mandate at the association’s annual general meeting, which preceded this month’s 36th annual Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association Caribbean Travel Marketplace event in San Juan.

“It is an honor to continue to serve the region’s hotel and tourism associations and their members and focus on the many pressing issues facing the Caribbean’s sustainability,” said Cox, who asserted her mandate includes increased engagement on issues as education and training, advocacy, airlift capacity, disaster management and the sharing economy.

CSHAE is an independent organization aimed at advancing professional development and strengthening networking among Caribbean hotel and tourism association executives.

The association’s 2018-20 Executive Board will be chaired by Gilda Gumbs Samuel, Executive Director of the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association, while Brian Frontin, CEO of the Trinidad Hotels, Restaurant & Tourism Association, will serve as Vice President.

Miles Mercera, President and CEO of the Curaçao Hospitality & Tourism Association, will serve as Treasurer, while Clarisa Jimenez, President and CEO of the Puerto Rico Hotel & Tourism Association, has been appointed Secretary.

Other elected CSHAE Board Directors include Avril Alexander, Executive Director of the British Virgin Islands Chamber of Commerce & Hotel Association; Tessie Duran Tonaco, Marketing Director of the Belize Hotel Association; and Lisa Hamilton, President of the U.S. Virgin Islands Hotel & Tourism Association.

While in San Juan, hotel association executives attended their annual leadership conference, sponsored by American Resort Development Association – Resort Owners’ Coalition and facilitated by Adriana Serna, ASAE Facilitator and Communications Manager of CHTA.

The post CSHAE Names New President appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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By Gerard Best
CJ Contributor

PORT OF SPAIN — A group of global and regional technology organizations are partnering to help Caribbean professionals get more out of the Internet economy.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) spearheaded the launch of the Virtual DNS Entrepreneurship Center of the Caribbean (VDECC). The term DNS refers to the domain name system, a core component of the technology behind the Internet. The DNS automatically translates human-readable website addresses into the numeric machine addresses that computers use.

VDECC aims to open up new money-making opportunities in the DNS industry for Internet businesses and entrepreneurs across the region, including Internet service providers, web hosting companies, top-level domain operators, domain name registrars and resellers, web developers, digital marketers, e-commerce startups and Internet legal experts.

“With the right mindset, a wide range of Internet stakeholders can take advantage of emerging opportunities to offer their services. Entrepreneurs with the right vision taking the right action can create new and sustainable business ventures,” said Albert Daniels, Stakeholder Engagement Senior Manager for the Caribbean at ICANN.

The initiative was launched in Port of Spain on Feb. 19, in partnership with the Latin American and Caribbean Country Code Top-Level Domain Association (LACTLD), CANTO, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, and the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), the volunteer-based community of computer network administrators from across the Caribbean.

Daniels described VDECC as the fruit of ICANN’s collaboration with organizations such as CANTO, CTU and CaribNOG. Delivering opening remarks at the launch, representatives of those bodies also voiced a desire to build strategic partnerships with ICANN.

“The VDECC initiative represents a new wave of possibility for how the Caribbean region is represented on the global DNS marketplace. We have the chance to engage a new cadre of entrepreneurially minded computer engineers, who are interested in playing a part on the global scale but may not fully understand the pathway to getting there,” said Bevil Wooding, Caribbean Outreach Liaison at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), and one of the founders of CaribNOG.

Meeting sessions covered a range of topics, such as the domain name aftermarket, and how to become an ICANN-accredited registrar. Plenary question-and-answer sessions peppered the agenda, creating a rich atmosphere of free-flowing dialogue among an audience that included a mix of technical, policy, legal and business interests. A number of online participants from across the Caribbean and Latin America also joined the dialogue through a live video stream. The open discussion identified a number of potentially lucrative business opportunities but also pinpointed specific hurdles that have to be overcome.

“We have a long road ahead, and this is just the first step,” said Daniel Fink, Stakeholder Engagement Senior Manager for Brazil at ICANN.

The post Building an Internet Economy in the Caribbean appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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By the Caribbean Journal staff

Saint Lucia’s transformed Point Seraphine cruise pier has welcomed a major cruise ship.

Holland America Line’s MS Eurodam cruise ship made its inaugural call to Saint Lucia with about 2,000 passengers this week.

It was the first plaque exchange ceremony to take place on board a ship at the newly-extended Dolphin berth at Point Seraphine since it opened last month.

“Holland American Line has been regularly coming to Saint Lucia and I have been here many times on my other ships but we found out the Eurodam has never been here. So we are very happy to host this little ceremony to commemorate out first visit to your beautiful island.” said Captain Eric Barhorst.

Holland America has been serving Saint Lucia since the 1960s.

The post Holland America Ship Makes First Call to Saint Lucia appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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By the Caribbean Journal staff

More and more travelers to Bermuda are looking to homesharing options like Airbnb, according to new data released by the Bermuda Tourism Authority.

The number of visitors to Bermuda who chose vacation rentals last year surged 133 percent compared to 2016, according to the data, which was provided by Airbnb.

“Bermuda represents an incredibly important and growing market for Airbnb. Through our partnership agreement with Bermuda’s government and tourism authority we have significantly grown our supply and increased the number of visitors for Bermudian homeowners. In 2018 we plan to further develop our partnership in Bermuda and engage the community with more home sharing educational seminars across the island.”

While the number increased dramatically, vacation rental stays accounted or about 10 percent of total visitors last year, according to the BTA.

Indeed, hotel occupancy actually increased, with year-end hotel occupancy in Bermuda passing the 60 percent mark for the first time since 2007.

Hotel occupancy rose by 9 percent to 63 for the year.

“While the Bermuda hotel sector as a whole requires further growth to reach sustainable profitability levels, the performance in 2017 was the best in a decade,” the BTA said.

The post Bermuda Seeing Surge in Airbnb Travel appeared first on Caribbean Journal.

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