Four TV ads and an online booking site, powered by Expedia, signal the first
phase of the $16 million Life Needs the Caribbean regional marketing campaign.
The plan is administered by the Caribbean Hotel Assn. Charitable Trust, a public
and private sector mix of governments, hotels, airlines and credit card firms to
promote the Caribbean as a single destination. The TV ads air through Nov. 16 on
14 national cable stations and carry a “Call your travel agent” tag line, a
toll-free booking number and the Web address at http://www.gocaribbean.com.
Expedia plans to launch a travel agent booking link on the site by year`s end.
Eighteen Caribbean countries, 155 hotels, Air Jamaica and American Express have
signed on as paid participants in the campaign. Countries pay into the plan in
proportion to their visitor numbers; hotels are charged based upon number of
rooms.

What is the CHACT?

The Caribbean Hotel Association Charitable Trust is a Public/ Private Sector conglomeration of major hotel chains, airlines and credit card companies who have joined forces through CTO with both CARICOM and non-CARICOM nations in order to market and promote the Caribbean as a single destination through a regional fund set to launch a television campaign with a related call-to-action. The overall intent of the campaign is to brand the region and therefore compete with other regions of the world who have been taking ever increasing Caribbean market share of the US outbound traveler for 9 straight years.

How does CHACT work for hotel members?
Step One: Prospective members pay a nominal cash fee and contribute a set number of room nights annually (along with related inventory controls). Specific costs and room night contribution levels can be found by visiting the enrollment forms tab at www.greatplacesinthecaribbean.com and downloading the .pdf forms. Please note that this web site is being phased out and therefore the data/content is out of date.

Step Two: The cash contributions go directly into the fund and the room nights are put up for direct auction to the consumer through our relationship with skyauction.com. The revenues received from the sale of these room nights are then split, with 25% being returned to the hotels and 75% to the regional fund. This way the hotels are able to cover fixed costs and make a little money on these rooms while the fund is able to provide a sustainable funding mechanism. More specific operational information and a step-by-step explanation of the methodology can be found at www.skyauction.com/marketing/cha

What are the tangible benefits to my participation?
Step Three: Once the hotel has “paid to play” by completing steps One and Two above, they are then able to contract with Expedia, who will be providing the back-end booking engine and call center function on a private label basis to the Trust. This means that when a consumer sees the ads on television and calls the 888# or visits the web site; only those hotels which have “paid to play” will be book-able through that call to action. Using the Expedia model will very importantly allow the hotels to yield rates and inventory through the use of an extranet. Commissions for these stays are then paid to the fund, which provides for more ads, which provides for more bookings, and so on.

Additional benefits include logo use (e.g. Intel inside approach), regional advocacy through the Trust, Public Relations sections of the web site homepage, sales leads relative to the destinations/hotels for prospective business, co-op discounted ad rates (as the budget grows), fam trips and Caribbean Extravaganzas.

What do I have to do to participate?

Please contact Chris Sharpless, Jr., CHA - Program Director for CHACT at (305) 443-3040 (p), (305) 443-3005 (f) [email protected] (e) to enroll today in order to take advantage of the full length of the media buy beginning August 19, 2002.

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