BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thursday September 1, 2011 – The Chief Executive Officers of long-serving regional airline LIAT and new low-cost carrier REDjet will go head to head at the State of the Industry Conference later this month in St. Martin, according to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) which is organising the inaugural event.
The CTO says Brian Challenger of LIAT and Ian Burns of REDjet will be in a powerful line-up of influential speakers that has been confirmed for the conference.
The September 16-17 conference – which will be preceded by two days of meetings involving ministers, commissioners and directors of tourism, as well as private sector tourism partners – will kick off with a “no-holds-barred” session that will question the very underpinnings of today's aviation industry in the Caribbean, including the cost of travel within the region and how to overcome the hurdles.
It will be a free-form discussion, with input from the attendees and moderated by well-known Caribbean journalist, Tony Fraser.
Other hard-biting sessions will focus on new markets, successful strategies for public-private sector partnerships and attracting the affluent traveller, the CTO said.
Secretary General of the CTO Hugh Riley stressed that the state of the industry is not only about challenge, but also about opportunity.
“Therefore, we want to come out of this conference with some answers as to what’s next, how to spot the opportunities to move forward, how to beat this recession. The tourism business is fiercely competitive and the Caribbean has to win,” he said.
Among the others will be discussing the future of the Caribbean tourism industry are airline executives, communications experts, tourism marketers, policy makers and researchers, including Keith Williams, the CEO of British Airways, who will deliver the keynote address, senior Director of Network Planning for Air Canada Vijay Bathija, Director of Global Sales at JetBlue Chad Meyerson, and Director Commercial and Revenue Planning with Virgin Atlantic Edmond Rose.
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