Former president of the National Association of Hotels & Restaurants, lawyer Enrique de Marchena presides over the new Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association that seeks to accommodate the needs of non-hotel members in the tourism sector. CHTA is born when regional tourism executives saw the need to expand the Caribbean Hotel Association. At the same time, CHTA has re-structured the organization both operationally and financially and the result is also a stronger association serving the interest of the hospitality industry in the Caribbean.
“This will be a way to show to our governments, public and private multilateral institutions, and all players in the tourism sector that CHTA has a broader span of representation of industry partners and therefore plays a major significant role in the Caribbean,” said Enrique De Marchena Kaluche, newly inaugurated president of CHTA for 2008-2010. De Marchena spoke after the formal start of operations of the new entity, in Miami, Florida on 22 July.
Moving forward as the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, the reformed and the renamed organization will now enable membership for all tourism industry stakeholders such as commercial establishments, restaurants, attractions, shops, artisans and others. “Tourism means business for all residents on our islands and we need to create a better understanding of this within our own communities,” De Marchena said.
Peter Odle, now Chairman of CHTA said: “If we are to remain the world traveler’s most sought after warm weather vacation destination, all of us in the tourism and hospitality industry including hotels, governments, restaurants, taxi associations, crafts markets, shopkeepers and even the cruise lines are going to have to work together in an atmosphere where cooperation is a way of life, not merely a watchword.”