Archives for September 2021

Royal Caribbean International, the second largest cruise line in the world, through their senior leadership team informed Jamaica Tourism Minister, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, in Miami, Florida, this week that they will resume limited operations to Jamaica in November of this year.

The senior executives added that once a number of logistical matters – some of which are outside Jamaica’s remit – are effectively resolved they will be in a position to significantly boost cruises to Jamaica, bringing in tens of thousands of fully vaccinated cruise visitors. The Senior Executives also reiterated their very strong desire to employ thousands of Jamaicans across a wide range of job functions and are awaiting government’s regulatory amendments to make it a reality.

In response Minister Bartlett expressed delight that “Royal Caribbean will recommence sailings to Jamaica after the over a year and half hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a few pressing matters to resolve forthwith so that they can boost cruises to Jamaica and in return boost economic and social livelihoods of thousands of Jamaicans who depend directly and indirectly on the cruise industry. Beyond that the government will move speedily in facilitating the cruise line’s efforts to employ thousands of Jamaicans, for what are truly exciting job opportunities that will have a positive impact for many. Our people are in demand and the cruise lines are fully cognizant of this.”

The new developments come following another meeting led by Minister Bartlett and his team with Chief Executive Officer of Carnival Corporation, the largest Cruise company in the world, Arnold Donald and other senior company executives in Miami where they informed of plans for 110 or more cruises with more than 200,000 fully vaccinated visitors for Jamaica over the next few months. The target is subject to continued close collaboration between Jamaican authorities and Carnival on logistics.

Bartlett was joined by the Chairman of the Jamaica Tourist Board, John Lynch; Director of Tourism, Donovan White; Senior Strategist in the Tourism Ministry, Delano Seiveright and Deputy Director of Tourism for the Americas, Donnie Dawson. The Royal Caribbean International engagement is one of a series of meetings with several travel industry leaders, including major Airlines and Investors, across Jamaica’s largest source markets, the United States and Canada. This is being done to drive increased arrivals to the destination in the coming weeks and months, as well as, to cement further investment in the local tourism sector.

The cruise industry was among the worst affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, shutting the industry down for over a year. However, with the most robust health and safety protocols in the global travel industry, including fully vaccinated passengers and crews, the industry has slowly resumed operations to multiple destinations including Jamaica.

Media Contact:

Corporate Communications Division

Ministry of Tourism

64 Knutsford Boulevard

Kingston 5

Telephone: 920-4924

Fax: 906-1729

Or

Kingsley Roberts

Senior Director, Corporate Communications

Ministry of Tourism

64 Knutsford Boulevard

Kingston 5

Tel: 920-4926-30, ext.: 5990

Cell: (876) 505-6118

Fax: 920-4944

Tourism Seychelles and airline partner Qatar Airways have intensified their efforts to reinforce the destination’s visibility in Switzerland by organizing a meeting with travel, media, and industry professionals in Zurich on Thursday, September 23.

The in-person event, held at the Savoy Baur en Ville in Zurich, featured a press conference held over breakfast, and a lunch meeting attracting 12 media partners and 15 product managers.

Led by Mrs. Bernadette Willemin, Director General of Marketing for Tourism Seychelles, and Mr. Antonio Panariello, Commercial Manager Switzerland at Qatar Airways, the two events aimed to keep their partners abreast of developments in Seychelles, safety measures, new attractions, as well as the latest news from Qatar Airways and flight schedules to Seychelles.

Speaking from Zurich, Mrs Willemin confirmed that Tourism Seychelles is gearing up for the next phase of recovery for the destination, which last weekend recorded its 100,000th visitor for the year.

“As life slowly returns to normal, vaccination is peaking in Europe, and around the world restrictions on movement and travel are being eased. Airlines are resuming their services and with Seychelles’ own population enjoying one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world, Tourism Seychelles is also now able to resume the promotional activities on its calendar. Numerous activities are happening in all our markets. Today’s event in Switzerland, which we held in collaboration with Qatar Airways, is to reinforce our presence on the market and reassure our partners that connectivity to our small islands is available,” Mrs. Willemin said.

Antonio Panariello, Commercial Manager Switzerland at Qatar Airways said: “It was a great pleasure to be here today and host this event together with the Tourism Seychelles. The links between Qatar Airways and the Seychelles are strong and important. This destination is of great interest to the Swiss market, and we are proud we can promote this destination together with Tourism Seychelles.”

On a positive note, the media and partners in attendance at both events commended the Seychelles government and the industry at large for their consistency and excellent communication skills during the pandemic.

The event follows a recent press trip in Seychelles sponsored by the Qatar Airways Switzerland office and which was supported by hotel partners Constance Lemuria Resort, STORY Seychelles, Hilton Seychelles Northolme Resort & Spa and Kempinski Seychelles Resort.

Seychelles completed the reopening of its borders to foreign visitors on March 25, 2021. Switzerland has to date this year contributed a 3% market share of total visitor arrivals.

MEDIA CONTACT: Tourism Seychelles, [email protected] 

“Now is the time to rethink everything,” says Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group. “We’ve always believed that event design is a fundamental skill for professionals in our industry. Now it’s incumbent on us all to strengthen our sector’s recovery, and the wider world in a way that’s regenerative and sustainable for all by putting these skills to the test. We’ve created an education program delivering fresh thinking around the future of meeting and event design along with sessions dedicated to true sustainability, diversity, humanity and technology among other topics.”

The free learning program at IMEX America, taking place November 9 – 11 in Las Vegas, launches with Smart Monday, powered by MPI, on November 8 and continues with a series of workshops, hot topic tables and seminars during the three days of the show.  As always, the show will also feature daily MPI keynotes, full details here.

The IMEX team has rethought its education tracks this year, introducing Professional Development and Upskilling, Creativity in Communication, Diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, Innovation and Tech and Purposeful Recovery to reflect current industry challenges and priorities.

Event Design to Power People & the Planet

In Intentional design for a purposeful recovery, Mariela McIlwraith, Vice President Sustainability and Industry Advancement at EIC, details how the organization’s Principles for Recovery and Sustainable Events can help to activate the power of events to drive recovery based on people, planet and prosperity.

Collaboration in event design sits front and center of #EventCanvas: Your map to extraordinary meetings. Roel Frissen and Ruud Janssen, inventors of #EventCanvas and co-founders of the Event Design Collective, want to help teams look at their ‘big picture goals’ and bring a broader range of stakeholders into the design process.

How can we create meaningful experiences that move audiences? This is one of the challenges tackled in EventMB’s Event Innovation Lab™. The team will share real-life examples of event design used to drive engagement as well as best practices in budgeting and securing revenue from sponsorships.

Sustainability must be included from the very start of any event design process. That’s according to Courtney Lohmann, Director Corporate Social Responsibility at PRA. Her session Sustainability is key to your event design argues a strong case for integrated sustainability when setting goals and objectives.

Using event design to deliver a ‘regenerative revolution’ and learning from nature to help attendees have a healthier, happier and more meaningful event experience is covered in The future we want: Catalyzing a regenerative revolution. Fresh from their work on IMEX’s Regenerative Revolution and the Nature of Space reports, Guy Bigwood, Chief Changemaker at GDS-Movement, and Janet Sperstad, Faculty Director at Madison College, will deliver their insightful research in detail.

The Helping Hand of Technology

The event experience can be enhanced through new technologies and Maritz share their learnings first-hand in Disruption in a time of recovery: Maritz reinventing the event experience through innovative technology. Aaron Dorsey, Senior Director Product Management and Amy Kramer, Market and Product Innovation Leader, share their organization’s learnings from the pandemic, the challenges they faced, and new disruptors they uncovered in this fireside chat.

AI is a technology that can drive audience engagement explains Michael Campanelli, Cofounder CEO of Chillwall AI: “Whether you want to be a better marketer, offer a superior visitor experience, or boost revenues, understanding emotional cues is essential. AI can help… massively”. Michael will deliver the session Decoding decision-making and the power of human-centric AI.

Backstage Tours & Desert Trips

Alongside the education on the show floor, attendees can also explore IMEX America’s new venue, Mandalay Bay, in a series of tours. Meeting centric tours with MGM Resorts offer an exclusive look into the behind-the-scenes operation of the resort and convention center. The MGM team along with MeetGreen, EIC and GES, will also take participants out into Nevada’s desert to visit the MGM Resort’s Mega Solar Array as part of the Measuring and managing event carbon footprints & Solar array tour.

Watch IMEX’s Knowledge & Events Director, Dale Hudson, and Senior Advocacy & Industry Relations Advisor, Natasha Richards, discussing the show’s extensive speaker program, new tracks and new show initiatives.

The IMEX team has redesigned its online education program and search functionality. IMEXAmerica.com visitors can now search by topic, format, keyword and day as well as applying filters. Go to Search Our Event Program.

IMEX America takes place November 9 – 11 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas with Smart Monday, powered by MPI, on November 8. To register – for free – click here. For more details about accommodation options and to book, click here. Special rate room blocks are still open and available.

imexamerica.com  

#IMEX21

eTurboNews is a media partner for IMEX America.

MEDIA CONTACT: 
Emma Blake: [email protected]

Removal of travel restrictions by foreign governments, a lack of marketing opportunities, stamping down on fraudulent and unethical practices, and the need to implement minimum industry standards took center stage in discussions held by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Mr. Sylvestre Radegonde, with tour guides from Praslin at a short meeting held at the Vallée de Mai on Friday, September 24, 2021.

The meeting with Praslin’s tour guides, attended by the Principal Secretary for Tourism, Mrs. Sherin Francis, and the new Director General for Product Planning and Development, Paul Lebon, was held in the presence of the National Assembly member for Praslin, Honorable Churchill Gill and Honorable Wavel Woodcock, the Chairperson of the Praslin Business Association, Mr. Christopher Gill as well as representatives from the Seychelles Island Foundation (SIF), Seychelles Police and Seychelles Licensing Authority (SLA).

In his opening remarks Minister Radegonde addressing the ongoing restrictions on travel from Seychelles’ traditional source markets, stated that the two departments under his purview are actively working with foreign governments as well as industry partners to ensure Seychelles becomes more accessible for visitors, particularly those from western Europe.

“We are working alongside our foreign partners to make sure that Seychelles is compliant with their requirements concerning health and reporting procedures and to be removed from their non-travel lists. We are also expecting the numbers (of visitors) to rise with the resumption of flights by airline partners from our traditional destinations such as Condor and Air France in October,” said Minister Radegonde.

The meeting which aimed to address complaints raised by SIF and SLA whose representatives stressed that the situation at Vallée de Mai has become difficult to handle and that immediate action is required to address the questionable business practices of some tour guides which are detrimental to operations at the Vallée de Mai.

The tour guides stated that they agree that to some extent inconsistencies in their trade, the lack of grooming, ethics and cooperation is giving a bad image of the industry to visitors.

Minister Radegonde recommended that all agencies work together to review the policies under which the tour guides are operating, informing the participants that the Department will be organizing in-service sessions aimed at improving industry standards for across the board, including those focused on grooming and improving on the services provided to visitors.

The issue of unfair competition with tour guides based on Mahé who are selling tours and day trip tours on Praslin was raised with Praslin island’s tour guides highlighting that they are missing out on the already scarce opportunities of making a living from tourism.  

The SIF representative stated that such visitors are not adding any value or revenue to the UNESCO World Heritage site as most of them do not enter the site, preferring to take pictures by the roadside, but nonetheless making use the park’s facilities, all the while posing a danger to the safety of other road users as well, SIF pointed out. These and other issues will be put forward to the concerned authorities, Minister Radegonde affirmed.

Responding to the tour guides’ concerns about the lack of marketing opportunities afforded them by with local hotels, PS Francis stated that the Tourism Department has put in place a platform for to help tourism operators to promote their products and services. 

 ”We know and understand the significant role of marketing as part of the success of the industry; therefore, we have a team in the section handling the promotion of our small destination. I urge you all to register on our ParrAPI platform which in turn will increase your visibility. I will also encourage all of you present to invest in your own marketing, especially on social media as this is where clients are now,” said Mrs. Francis.

Joining together to push in the same direction will help to improve the industry standards Minister Radegonde said, encouraging the tour guides on Praslin to form an association to further their interests and that of the industry. Closing the meeting, Minister Radegonde affirmed his support to the tourism industry on Praslin, reiterating his warning that the Department of Tourism and other partners will be firm with operators who persist in engaging in fraudulent practices and are seen as a threat to the industry.

MEDIA CONTACT: Tourism Seychelles, [email protected] 

The St. Regis San Francisco, the city’s premier address for luxury accommodations, gracious service and timeless elegance, is pleased to announce the appointment of Roger Huldi to the position of general manager.  A highly accomplished hospitality operations leader known for developing innovative and progressive programming and initiatives, Huldi is a seasoned industry veteran with nearly 30 years of experience working with Marriott International and Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Huldi joins The St. Regis San Francisco after an eight-year tenure as general manager of W San Francisco, where he led the property to LEED Platinum Certification and introduced dynamic and now globally adapted programming.  In recognition of Huldi’s leadership, the American Hotel and Lodging Association named W San Francisco the 2016 Hotel of the Year.

“I’m honored to step into the general manager role at The St. Regis San Francisco, renowned throughout the world for its gracious elegance and anticipatory service,” said Huldi. “It is with great pride that I join the exemplary team at The St. Regis San Francisco as we meet the preferences of new generations of travelers while maintaining the exacting standards of the iconic St. Regis brand.”

A professionally trained chef, Huldi’s path to the hospitality industry was by way of culinary leadership roles in five-star, luxury properties, first in his native Switzerland and then in Australia, where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Bond University.  

Huldi is an avid mountain biker and skier, enjoys sailing on the San Francisco Bay, and is particularly fond of long walks with his wife on the Bay Area’s many hiking trails.  He is also a beekeeping aficionado, which aligns perfectly with the hotel’s beekeeping program and overall commitment to sustainable practices.

Huldi is an active board member of the San Francisco Travel Association, the California Hotel and Lodging Association’s Hospitality Foundation, and the Hotel Council of San Francisco.

The St. Regis San Francisco offers 260 rooms and suites, all of which were recently reimagined by prominent Toronto-based design firm Chapi Chapo.  The redesign also encompassed The St. Regis San Francisco’s 15,000 square feet of meeting and event spaces, creating refined, comfortable and innovative areas designed to facilitate conversation and collaboration.  The St. Regis San Francisco, as with all St. Regis properties, is renowned for its signature Butler Service.

For more information about The St. Regis San Francisco and its many offerings, please visit here.

The St. Regis San Francisco

The St. Regis San Francisco opened in November 2005, introducing a new dimension of luxury, uncompromising service, and timeless elegance to the city of San Francisco. The 40-story landmark building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, includes 102 private residences rising 19 levels above the 260-room St. Regis Hotel. From legendary butler service, “anticipatory” guest care and impeccable staff training to luxurious amenities and interior design by Chapi Chapo of Toronto, The St. Regis San Francisco delivers an unmatched guest experience. The St. Regis San Francisco is located at 125 Third Street. Telephone: 415.284.4000.

Media contacts:  Hwee Peng Yeo, Laura Gigounas, and Danyelle Mast at Glodow Nead Communications, 415.394.6500 or [email protected].