Above: Montego Bay

By Alexander Brtiell

PARADISE ISLAND — Jamaica will host the CHTA’s Caribbean Travel Marketplace Conference in 2014 in Montego Bay.

It will represent the third time the country has hosted the conference for the CHTA, which, like Jamaica, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.

“We are very excited,” said Nicola Madden-Greig, group director of marketing and sales at the Courtleigh Hotel Group in Jamaica. “We think it’s significant that Jamaica will be leading the charge for the next 50 years, both for our country and for the association.”

This year’s conference is being held at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas for the second year in a row.

Jamaica last hosted the conference in 2011 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, which had just opened at the time.

“A lot has happened in Jamaica, a lot of new developments — we have a lot of of investment taking place, a lot of persons coming in,” said Jamaica Tourism Minister Dr Wykeham McNeill. “It will give us a chance to show this new product to all who come to us.”

The first Marketplace was held in Kingston, then called Caribana, according to outgoing director general of the CHTA Alec Sanguinetti.

“I know the government and the JHTA [Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association] and the people of Jamaica are very excited about this development,” Madden-Greig said.