PROMOTING

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PROMOTING MANAGING CARIBBEAN TOURISM
ON-LINEArley Sobers, Caribbean Tourism
Organization, November 2005
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Caribbean Tourism

• Visitation
• 22.5 million tourists
• 20.8 cruise passenger visits
• Economic Contribution
• Spending US22.5 billion 34 of total exports
• Total Employment 950,000
• Other
• Main Markets North America 55, Europe 30
  Other 15
• Hotel rooms 270,000

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Caribbean Tourism Organization

• Government Membership 31 countries in English,
  French, Spanish and US Caribbean varying in size
  and level of tourism development
• Private Sector membership market and
  destination-based travel related businesses
  close working relationship with the Caribbean
  Hotel Association (CHA)
• Main Activities Regional Marketing, Statistics
  Research, Education Training, Tourism
  Development

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Impact of Information Technology

• Driven by marketplace changes in consumer
  behavior and in distribution systems initially
  in US
• Opportunity or threat?
• Variable quality of member country websites
• Loss of natural URLs
• Destination management information
• First regional site in 1994 current system
  implemented in 2001

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Caribbean Regional Approach

• Three Inter-related Systems
• Consumer Internet Site
• DoItCaribbean.com
• Regional Intranet
• OneCaribbean.org
• Management Information System
• CTO-MIST

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Consumer Site

• www.doitcaribbean.com

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Consumer Site DoItCaribbean.comto attract and
funnel site visitors to the official internet
sites of CTO member countries

• Enquiries Trade and Consumer
• DoItCaribbean.com
• member country
• official sites
• Technical Support to Member Countries

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DoItCaribbean.com (cont)

• information in six languages
• country sections, with link to official website
• targets 16 specific market segments (Gateways),
  each with link to the relevant section of the
  country site
• modular design for easy addition/deletion of
  gateways
• management system for in-house editing, etc
• other Features include
• Interactive Vacation Planner, Interactive Map
• Calendar of Events (database-driven), Travel
  Agent Finder, Weather, Currency Converter, etc

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Regional Tourism Intranet

• www.onecaribbean.org

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Regional Intranet OneCaribbean.org

• to share information and enhance communication
  between Caribbean tourism interests
• hierarchical access
• self-administered virtual groups with
  controlled access, chat forums, document storage
  and retrieval, etc
• web-based email, member directories, etc
• shared resources with the consumer site
  (DoitCaribbean) e.g. calendar of events, travel
  agent database
• tourism statistics reports, market
  research/intelligence
• sale of reports, conference registration, PR
  releases, etc
• some information accessible by non-members

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CTO-MIST Tourism Management Information System

• to advance the tourism planning, marketing and
  research processes through improved use of IT
• earlier work
• three main modules
• Performance
• processing analysis of Immigration cards
• visitor surveys, other indicators (economic,
  etc)
• Product Inventory
• accommodation, restaurants, attractions, events,
  etc
• Market Data
• market research/intelligence, etc
• travel agent tour operator databases, fam
  trips, etc

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Inter-related Systems
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CARIBBEAN INTERNET NETWORK
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Management Issues

• Consumer Site
• Managed by Research Department with direction and
  significant inputs from Marketing Department
• European chapters role in foreign language sites
• Marketing Department to play a greater role in
  future
• Intranet OneCaribbean.org
• Intranet Administrator, in association with other
  staff
• Inputs from established groups and member
  countries
• CTO-MIST
• Technical support to countries provided by
  Research Department
• Some maintenance work by developer

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Performance

• Consumer Site DoItCaribbean.com (DiC)
• Approx 150,000 visits per month
• Consumer preference for single site DiC more
  self-contained than initially planned
• Information only site addition of booking engine
• Intranet OneCaribbean.org
• Approx 30,000 visits per month
• Navigation issues
• CTO-MIST Management Information System
• Used in 7 countries 2 more using inventory
  module

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Towards the Future

• Plans to upgrade the entire system in 2006
• DoItCaribbean.com (DiC)
• Joint with the Caribbean Hotel Association
• Will have a more commercial orientation
• Third party review underway
• OneCaribbean.org
• Upgrade navigation
• CTO-MIST
• Completely re-build system
• New model Immigration card barcode, e-mail
  address and survey questions
• CRM

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Thank You!!