Feb. 4, 2008 – New York, NY— The Caribbean Tourism Development Company (CTDC), the marketing and business development unit owned equally by the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) and the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), will partner with Travel Agent Media Group (TAMG), a division of Questex Media Group, Inc., to handle the media aspects of its travel trade outreach activities.
TAMG will publish and distribute the semi-annual Caribbeantravel.com – The Magazine, previously known as The Caribbean Gold Book. Caribbeantravel.com – The Magazine will distribute to more than 27,000 travel agents in North America and the UK, and features detailed information on every Caribbean destination, and in excess of 1,300 hotel properties. Travel Agent Media Group, with its expertise in magazine publishing, as well as the largest database of agents in the industry, offers CTDC new distribution outlets for the publication, ensuring targeted reach to the most productive "brick & mortar," luxury, and home-based travel agents that actively sell the Caribbean. The first issue of Caribbeantravel.com - The Magazine to be published by TAMG will be the Summer 08 edition.
"Questex and the Travel Agent publishing team bring a wealth of resources, expertise, and commitment to print and electronic communication with the travel distribution community," said Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, co-chief executive officer of the CTDC. "Travel Agent brings efficiencies, and resources that will allow us to communicate effectively to the retail travel community."
In addition to publishing Caribbeantravel.com – The Magazine, TAMG will develop and deploy a “travel agents” web portal to appear on the Caribbeantravel.com Web site. When developed in the coming months, it will serve as the official travel agent site for the Caribbean and be located at caribbeantravel.com/agents. It will feature destination and hotel information, news, a festivals & events calendar, and library of digital brochures and videos. The goal is to provide agents with all the information they might require to assist them in selling the Caribbean to their clients.
A key aspect of the agent site will be an online "E-Learning" platform that will be an extension of Travel Agent's highly successful Travel Agent University. Courses will be developed in cooperation with each Caribbean island destination, allowing agents to become specialists in specific destinations, or in certain types of travel within the region (e.g. destination weddings, romance/honeymoon, dive travel, family travel, etc.).
Beyond publishing and distribution, TAMG was also chosen to work closely with the CTDC to develop and publish special editorial features that will appear in TAMG's magazines. These thematic editorial sections, to distribute along with Travel Agent, Home-Based Travel Agent and Luxury Travel Advisor will provide agents with timely and useful selling tools.
"We are so pleased to have been chosen as the official trade media strategic partner,” said Kerry J. Cannon, Jr., group publisher of the Travel Agent Media Group. "We've worked very closely with CHA and CTO in the past, and this is the logical progression of our relationship. Agents play such a vital role in bringing travelers to the region, and our goal is to ensure that they have immediate access to any and all resources and information tools to help them serve their Caribbean-bound clients."
“Travel Agent Media Group has been a valued and supportive partner with us for years,” said Alec Sanguinetti, co-chief executive officer for CTDC. “Travel Agent magazine has demonstrated a commitment to our region and a clear understanding of what our needs are. Making them a strategic partner is the natural evolution of a long-valued relationship.”
About Travel Agent Media Group (www.travelagentcentral.com)
Travel Agent Media Group is a division of the Questex Media Group, Inc. a global, diversified business-to-business integrated media and information provider, headquartered in Newton, MA. Questex serves multiple industries including technology, beauty, spa, travel, hospitality, leisure, home entertainment, industrial specialties and service industries through a range of well-established, market-leading publications, events, interactive media, research, information and integrated marketing services. The company’s media properties include 81 trade magazines and eNewsletters, 84 websites, 45 conferences tradeshows and events, as well as a range of research, data and information products. The company's combined operations include more than 450 employees in offices throughout North America, South America, Asia and Europe
About The Caribbean Tourism Development Company
The mission of the Caribbean Tourism Development Company (CTDC) is to own, promote, protect, advance and enhance the Caribbean brand.
The CTDC combines the resources of the Caribbean region’s destinations, accommodations and service providers to create a viable, cohesive, business unit that is able to identify commercial opportunities and allow the members of CHA and CTO to benefit collectively from those opportunities in ways that individually they could not. In all its endeavors the company will engage only in activities that honor the Caribbean brand and benefit the members of CHA and CTO. The CTDC may be contacted through the offices of the CTO and CHA.
For more information, or to book a trip to the Caribbean, go to www.caribbeantravel.com |