The recent Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s (CHTA) 42nd edition, held in Jamaica’s Montego Bay Convention Center, was successful, hosting over 1,200 delegates from more than 45 countries. It also featured the first-ever MICE groups exchange, with 14 MICE companies meeting local providers. Here, Caribbean tourism executives share their view of the segment.
“We collaborate closely with planners to understand their needs and provide tailored solutions. This includes leveraging our extensive network of partners, such as top hotels and DMCs, to ensure seamless event planning and execution,” says Kenneth Bryan, Minister of Tourism & Ports for the Cayman Islands and Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Association. He adds that the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism also has several incentive programs designed to make the destination an attractive one for group events. These programs often include discounts on accommodations, complimentary services and special packages that add value for the planners and their attendees.
“Our team offers dedicated support throughout the planning process. This includes providing detailed information about venues, activities and logistical support to ensure planners have everything they need to create successful events,” Bryan adds. “We also maintain a comprehensive database, allowing us to manage and track planner interactions effectively. This helps us to offer personalized and timely support to our partners.” The top five hotels catering to the MICE market in the Cayman Islands are The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman; Hotel Indigo; Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa; Grand Cayman Marriott Resort; and The Westin Grand Cayman Seven Mile Beach Resort & Spa.
“The MICE market is increasingly important to Anguilla, as this is a highly lucrative segment,” says Chantelle Richardson, Deputy Director of Tourism for the Anguilla Tourist Board. “As a small destination, we’re very targeted in our approach. Anguilla is an ideal incentive destination, as our luxury resorts, spectacular beaches, fabulous restaurants and unique experiences make our island the ultimate reward. We also have great potential for corporate and executive retreats.”
The island is seeing progress on a multimillion-dollar resort yacht marina at Altamer Resort. The marina complex will have self-contained immigration and customs services, a 62-room five-star hotel, 48 resort condominiums and a spa. It will serve as the official port of entry to the island. Construction has also begun on a new airport terminal to handle increased passenger flow from direct service to the island.
Of note: Anguilla will host the Caribbean & Mexico Meeting & Incentive Travel Exchange (CMITE) for the first time this year. “We’re also planning a familiarization visit for meeting planners next year in conjunction with our stakeholders. This visit will showcase how we coordinate and execute group activities and introduce them to the island’s talented DMCs and event planners,” adds Richardson.
“We’ve developed a plan and a strategy not just to invite meeting planners to the destination, but to ensure that they have curated experiences that they can pass on to their [attendees],” says Valerie Brown-Alce, Deputy Director General of The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism & Aviation. “Convention, exposition and event business has been our strongest market in terms of growth over the last year.… We’ve always been very popular and continue to be an incentive travel destination.”
Brown-Alce points to the multiplicity of islands and the experiences attendees can enjoy for the strong return, as well as their robust Groups Department, which has attended most of the major trade shows in the U.S. and abroad. “We’ve gotten a tremendous number of RFPs, not just in 2024, but through 2026.” The digital environment has also thrived, with more planners attending webinars and scheduling on their platform.
Of note: Among newest hotels is the British Colonial in The Pointe with 288 guest rooms. New boutique properties are also springing up, including Montage in Abacos and the Four Seasons Condo Hotel on Paradise Island. The much larger 400-room Somewhere Else is coming soon at Atlantis Paradise Island. Grand Bahama will begin construction on the redevelopment of its international airport for $200 million, with completion by 2025, and by 2026, the island will debut a Six Senses Residences & Resort.
“We have a new product on the ground: The Wyndham Grand Barbados, Sam Lord’s Castle Resort with 420-plus rooms and one of the largest convention facilities on the island,” says Peter Mayers, Director, USA, for Barbados Tourism Marketing. “We can attract medium- to large-size groups and host them well.” The hotel opens in October 2024 with 422 guest rooms and suites and 15,000 sf of flexible indoor/outdoor meeting and event space for up to 1,100 attendees.
Barbados offers “the carnival scene, the soft adventure, the heritage, ideas for hosting different events,” says Mayers. Activities unique to the island include hosting a dinner or closing event at George Washington House, a dinner inside Harrison’s Cave and various activities centered around rum. Planners can work with Barbados Tourism to meet renowned Barbadian race car driver Zane Maloney at Bushy Park Circuit and take a spin around the track. The Hilton Barbados Resort, with 355 oceanview guest rooms, offers another unique venue: The 17th-century UNESCO World Heritage Charles Fort, with over 10,000 sf of event space.
Jamaica’s meetings and incentives offer is one of the amplest in the Caribbean. Planners have two world-class meeting facilities—the Montego Bay Convention Center, with 55,725 sf of contiguous exhibit space, which accommodates general session setups and up to 260 exhibit booths, and the state-of-the-art Jamaica Conference Center in Kingston, which can accommodate up to 1,200 attendees.
This is exclusive, of course, of the meeting facilities offered by hotels and resorts. Among these, as Minister Edmund Bartlett announced during the conference, are plans for a 1,000-guestroom luxury resort by Grand Palladium in Lucea with a convention center and golf courses and the conversion of a Holiday Inn with 3,000 sf of meeting space to a Catalonia Hotels & Resorts property this month. This year alone, the island will debut 2,000 new guest rooms—namely in the Rose Hall corridor—with 15,000-20,000 in the pipeline over the next five to 10 years. “I’m proud to say that Jamaica is the only destination in the region where every single investor who promised investment expansion and development before COVID has kept the faith after COVID,” said Bartlett.
“We just finished the Sustainable Tourism Conference at the Radisson [Grenada Beach Hotel]. We had 316 people—and it was absolutely phenomenal,” says Petra Roach, CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority. It was the largest conference in the history of the organization.
“It’s interesting because one would automatically say Grenada is perfect for incentives rather than conferences. But many Caribbean islands are hosting their regional conferences in Grenada.” The Radisson Grenada Beach Resort has a 12,000-sf convention center, and the Grenada Trade Center offers two buildings that can house up to 1,200 attendees. For Roach, the “sweet spot” for events is 250 attendees “because you don’t want to get to the point where you can stop recognizing persons as individuals.”
For incentive planners, Grenada offers boutique properties for C-suite executives and top earners, including the newly opened Six Senses LaSagesse and Silversands Beach House.
“We are affirming the island’s standing as a premier destination for meetings, incentives, conferences and events,” said Thomas Leonce, Director of Marketing for the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority Subcommittee, who kicked off his press conference by reminding attendees that Saint Lucia was awarded the “Caribbean’s Best Corporate Retreat Destination 2023” in Berlin at the fourth annual World MICE Awards and mentioning their most recent tourism initiative. Launched by the Ministry of Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information and TaiwanICDF, the Story Map and the Smart Tourism Project, started in Castries on May 14, 2024, is a program that allows visitors to navigate the city using QR codes to provide information about their route, including details on the island’s history and culture.
When it comes to incentives, “In Saint Lucia, we can customize [the experience],” says Richard Moss, the tourism authority’s Sr. Sales Manager. “The top, top producers, we can send them by helicopter, others by Mercedes-Benz and others by ferry. We can stratify. And we don’t do mass groups. The largest was at the Royalton [Saint Lucia, An Autograph Collection All-Inclusive Resort], and that was only 453 and a total buyout. Other than that, the boutique hotels provide you with the C-suite executive incentive.” The Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, he adds, leans heavily on its very experienced DMCs, some of whom have been in business for over 30 years. Of note: The destination welcomed the Cabot Saint Lucia luxury golf resort late last year and expects to add 2,000 more guest rooms to its offer by 2025, including the adults-only Secrets St. Lucia Resort & Spa (formerly St. James Club), with over 300 guestrooms and suites.
“The MICE market is really growing,” states Aida Weinum, Director of the St. Martin Tourist Office. Meeting planners looking at French St. Martin will also consider Dutch St. Maarten because May-Ling Chun, Director of Tourism for the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau, says, “You cannot only do one side.”
On the French side, the adults-only Secrets St. Martin Resort is undergoing a renovation that is expected to be completed by the end of the year. On the Dutch side, they’re celebrating the opening of the JW St. Maarten Beach Resort & Spa, with 200 guest rooms and 30,000 sf of meeting space.
Currently, the largest venue on the island is at the adults-only Sonesta Ocean Point All-Inclusive Resort with 130 rooms and 24,000 sf of meeting space.
Of note: “To further develop our MICE market, which we are doing jointly, we’re also [working with] Anguilla,” adds Chun.
ivisitanguilla.com/m-i-c-e; bahamas.com/groups-meetings-incentive-travel; visitbarbados.org; visitcaymanislands.com; visitjamaica.com/groups-incentives/meet-in-jamaica; puregrenada.com; stlucia.org; vacationstmaarten.com/groups; st-martin.org