We really get it. And if you don’t believe me, just ask Frank Comito, CEO and director general of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA), who says the travel trade media scored the highest marks for disseminating fair and accurate information about the region in its latest members survey.
Comito told delegates at the recent CHTA Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Nassau, Bahamas, that a new component gauging the media was added to its annual Industry Outlook and Performance survey for 2020 and that travel trade media earned top marks – ahead of general consumer media and social media – from amongst its 1,000 members.
“The travel trade came out with high marks; the consumer media came out with lower marks; and social media came out with much lower marks – in terms of accuracy of reporting, fairness of reporting, and these kinds of things,” he said.
Such sentiment is especially strong when it comes to “information and misinformation that goes out, particularly around crisis situations like hurricanes,” Comito reported.
“One of our biggest challenges is to geographically educate the travelling public about our region… The perception is that if a crisis situation, be it a hurricane, sargassum (seaweed), or whatever, hits one part of the Caribbean, then the entire Caribbean is wiped out. And we know that you in the travel trade know that’s not the case. The distance between Boston and Miami is the same distance between Miami and Trinidad… and our travel trade gets it – and responds accurately.”
Comito used the recent plight of the Bahamas as an example. Hit by Hurricane Dorian in September, the storm ultimately only affected the Abacos and part of Grand Bahama – two of the country’s 16 island groups.
Whereas the general media suggested that the entire Bahamas had been devastated, “the travel trade was putting the caveats on that, saying it affected only the northern Bahamas,” Comito said.
“And it’s a message that was really important: it affects lives and livelihoods (of those who would suffer from a decline in visitors scared off by misinformation).”
In addition to quickly identifying affected islands, the travel trade media promoted islands that weren’t, ongoing recovery (re-openings on Grand Bahama; Abaco is still a “long way” from normalcy) and charitable relief efforts.
Consumer and social media in particular, Comito noted, were also prevalent in spreading (since discounted) information that tourists were dying in mysterious conditions at resorts in the Dominican Republic in 2019 leading to a tourism downturn and illustrating how media “can damage a country and have an impact.”
Not so the travel media, he stated, which “does a great job of continuing to understand our region and continuing to promote accuracy.”
And, he added, “It really makes a difference!”
For 55 years, the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) has been the Caribbean’s leading association representing the interests of national hotel and tourism associations. It has some 1,000 hotel and allied members, and 33 National Hotel Associations.