Ministers of Tourism of Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) member states have established a 10-member public/private sector committee to review the structure and operations of the organization.
The committee, headed by CTO’s first vice chairperson, Pamela Richardson, tourism commissioner of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), will look at a number of issues critical to CTO. These include it’s business plans; how the organization funds itself and the relevance of its programmes to the various categories of its membership.
“CTO has been around for fifty years and one needs to have a good look at all aspects of the organization and we agreed that we had to reinvent CTO,” said Jean Holder, secretary general of the regional organization.
The committee has been mandated to present recommendations on reinventing the organization, to the Ministers of Tourism when they meet in Curacao next February.
“This would include looking at how we can implement specific areas of our Strategic Plan, looking at what are the priorities, what needs to be done at the national, as opposed to the regional level, the prospects of continuing the regional campaign in the marketplace,” stated Mr. Holder.
The secretary general said that the decision to reinvent CTO was consistent with the theme for the 25th Annual Caribbean Tourism Conference (CTC-25), Reinventing Caribbean Tourism.
The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), with headquarters in Barbados and marketing operations in New York, London and Toronto, is the Caribbean`s tourism development agency and comprises membership of 32 governments and a myriad of private sector companies.
The CTO`s mission is to provide to and through its members, the services and information needed for the development of sustainable tourism for the economic and social benefit of the Caribbean people.  The organization provides specialized support and technical assistance to member countries in the areas of marketing, human resource development, research and statistics and sustainable development.
The CTO disseminates information on behalf of its member governments to consumers and the travel trade.
For more information, please contact CTO Headquarters at One Financial Place, Collymore Rock, St. Michael, Barbados; tel: (246) 427-5242; fax: (246) 429-3065; E-mail: [email protected].  CTO`s New York office is located at 80 Broad Street, 32nd Floor, New York, NY 10004, USA; tel: (212) 635-9530; fax: (212) 635-9511; E-mail: [email protected].  CTO`s London office is located at 42 Westminster Palace Gardens, Artillery Row, London SW1P 1RR; tel: 171-222-4335; fax 171-222-4325; E-mail: [email protected].  CTO Canada can be reached at Taurus House, 512 Duplex Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4R 2E3; tel: (416) 485-8724; fax: (416) 485-8256; E-mail [email protected].  Visit CTO on the web at www.doitcaribbean.com and www.onecaribbean.org.
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