Seatrade Cruise News is part of the Informa Markets Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Caribbean Village plans solid presence at Seatrade Med

Anne Kalosh
Caribbean Village destinations work together to market the region as a whole
The Caribbean Village has 13 destinations booked so far to jointly exhibit at Seatrade Med in Barcelona next month, and a couple additional destinations are pending, according to Julie-Anne Burrowes, business development consultant for the regional joint marketing initiative.

Confirmed are Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Dominica, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinitique, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Martin and St. Vincent and Grenadines.

'The destinations are looking forward to the opportunities ahead,' Burrowes said. 'They have made significant strides in that [European] marketplace. A number of destinations have good success.'

According to Burrowes, the Caribbean Village participants work together to market the region as a whole, and this collective effort continues to grow from event to event. She predicted some new destinations will be joining the Caribbean Village in the year ahead and said the group's reach will be expanding to other events, beyond its traditional showing at Seatrade Europe in Hamburg.

One of the particular interests was the recently postponed Seatrade Latin America, which had been scheduled for Rio de Janeiro early next month and now is expected to take place in 2015.

'We're going to have a presence there,' Burrowes said. 'The proximity of that market [Latin America] holds great promise for us here in the region, especially as we look for new opportunities for destinations and for cruisers.'

Cruise Shipping Asia Pacific will be another event on the Caribbean Village calendar, not this year but in future. Burrowes described what would be a limited first Caribbean presence there as an 'exploratory-type mission' to see what opportunities are available.

In addition, the Caribbean Village is considering participating in a travel agent event.