The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) has plans to launch a “Certified Caribbean Travel Advisor Expert” program, set to debut next year. Announced by CHTA President Nicola Madden-Greig during a press conference on Tuesday, October 4 at the 40th Caribbean Travel Marketplace in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the program will aim to unify all the various regional destination and brand specialist programs, so that advisors can better know (and sell) the region as a whole.
Why the push for travel advisors? Simply put, they have access to the travelers the Caribbean wants to attract.
According to research by the American Society of Travel Advisors, as shared by Madden-Greig, 27 percent of travelers often or always used a travel advisor before the pandemic; that number has risen to 44 percent of travelers who say, post-COVID, they are more likely to use a travel advisor. Ninety-four percent of travelers who used an advisor before the pandemic are likely to use one again after.
In addition, the more trips a traveler took in the past three years, the more likely they were to have used a travel advisor. Among those who took six or more trips in the past three years, 39 percent always or often used a travel advisor; those two took one or two trips used an advisor at a 12 percent rate.
With 700 islands across 23 destinations, the only way to truly understand what the Caribbean has to offer, Madden-Greig said, is to create such a specialist program to inform advisors about all of it. With the current, individualized programs, “there’s clearly a knowledge gap,” she said. “We want to ensure that travel advisors across the world really understand the full gamut of what is available in the Caribbean, and that there is absolutely fantastic diversity,” added Madden-Greig.
The “Certified Caribbean Travel Advisor” program will be an online course. CHTA will be partnering with destinations and hotel associations and their programs will be incorporated into the CHTA program, she explained. The destinations and hotel associations would not only push their own courses, but they would then suggest to advisors to sign up to become a certified Caribbean specialist
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