THE BAHAMAS–At the 29th Caribbean Tourism Conference, in the Bahamas, Aimee Kleinmoedig, director of the Curacao Tourist Board in Miami, touted new developments on the island with six hotels under construction and seven more in the pipeline. Chief among the new hotels are the 350-room Hyatt Regency Curacao is poised to become the largest hotel on the island planned to open summer 2008; and the 240-room Renaissance Curacao Resort & Casino, a AAA, Four Diamond hotel planned to open in December 2007. Curacao also recently celebrated the grand opening of its new airport terminal, the first phase in a 30-year contract to develop and expand Curacao International Airport. Kleinmodig also noted that Curacao will increase its marketing efforts in the U.S. as part of its plan to attract a larger share of the U.S. market, which currently lags behind European arrivals.
