Jamaica to host 2024 CHTA Travel Marketplace

The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s Travel Marketplace will take place in Jamaica in 2024.

The announcement was made  yesterday during Jamaica’s press conference at the 41st Travel Marketplace currently taking place in Barbados .

The last Travel Marketplace took place in Jamaica five years ago.

Responding to the announcement, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett said he is very pleased to welcome the event back to his island.

“It’s five years since we had a mega tourism event. As a signature statement of recovery, Jamaica is going to host one of the most exciting CHTA’s that you would have ever seen, a marketplace with a difference,’ he said.

He noted there would be sessions on thought leadership, and resilience, and mega players from across the world would be brought in for those discussions.

“You could look forward to a first day that would be filled with strong activations around sustainability, resilience, investment, and of course, the tourism trade,” he said.

Nicola Madden-Greig, President of the CHTA, said the 42nd Travel Marketplace would give them the opportunity to do pre and post-tours as is usually done. However, she said they would be working with Jamaica’s Northern neighbours to do multi-destination tours.

The dates for the 2024 Travel Marketplace will be announced at a later time.

This year’s event is being held in Barbados for the first time. Madden-Greig said they are in talks with other destinations who have never hosted Travel Marketplace but they need time to get themselves ready.

Speaking to the media at a press conference, Karen Whit, Chair of the CHTA Travel Marketplace committee, said this year’s marketplace has seen participation from 24 countries as buyers with the largest contingent of companies, 27, from the United Kingdom. Twelve of those are first-time participants.

Overall there are 101 buyers and 178 suppliers at the event.

-B