Above: Fort de France

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Industry Conference opens Wednesday in Martinique.

The conference begins with a conference featuring dignitaries including Serge Letchimy, president of Martinique’s Regional Council, Martinique Tourism Commissioner Karine Roy-Camille and CTO Chairman Beverly Nicholson-Doty.

“Strong inter-sectoral linkages with industries such as agriculture, construction and the financial services sector, for example, place additional responsibility on all of us in tourism to emerge from this conference with a stronger plan for a more sustainable and more resilient tourism sector,” Nicholson-Doty said in a statement ahead of the conference. “Over the next few days we have an opportunity to look clinically at all aspects of our industry and chart the way forward.”

Nicholson-Doty, who assumed the Chairmanship of the CTO at the State of the Industry Conference in St Kitts last year, said “Creative solutions are needed on all fronts, particularly on matters of increasing taxation; optimizing arrivals and revenues from emerging and existing source markets; airlift stability; the pursuit of sustainability in the face of constrained financial resources; and most importantly pooling our resources to strengthen the Caribbean brand in the marketplace.”

“Lip service can no longer be the order of our days,” she said.

The conference officially begins Wednesday evening at the Madiana Convention Centre in Fort-deFrance.

It’s being held under the theme of “Perfecting the Experience. Delivering Authenticity.”

Martinique is holding the conference for the first time.