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ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA SHOWCASED AT SEATRADE CRUISE SHIPPING MIAMI THE WORLD’S LARGEST CRUISE INDUSTRY TRADESHOW
Friday 16th March 2012

Antigua and Barbuda reinforced its position as a leading Caribbean cruise destination at Cruise Shipping Miami, where the country’s delegation, led by Tourism Minister Hon. John Maginley, held key meetings promoting cruise tourism in the twin-island destination.  The annual event presents the country with a unique opportunity to display the wealth of information available about the destination as a premier one for cruise tourism.

The business-to-business event, dubbed “the largest industry exposition of its kind,” attracts over 10,000 exhibitors each year, and gives cruise tourism officials a unique opportunity to remind the cruise industry that Antigua & Barbuda is a destination with a unique product perfectly suited to the modern cruise traveller. The renewed focus on marketing the destination to the key industry decision makers is critical in light of the challenges being faced by the entire region which has seen a reduction in calls with the redeployment of ships from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean.
 
Along with Minister Maginley, the country’s delegation included Miami based Consul General Ambassador Ian Sweeney, CEO of the Antigua Tourism Authority Colin James, General Manager of the Antigua Pier Group Conrad Pole, Director of the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Marine Services Dwight Gardiner, President of the Antigua and Barbuda Cruise Tourism Association Nathan Dundas, and other cruise tourism staff and stakeholders.

The delegation met with many of the leading executives for all major cruise lines, with an objective to increase calls to Antigua and Barbuda, especially in the slow summer months. Other items of discussion surrounded infrastructural and dredging plans to improve the facilities at the nation's cruise piers to accommodate the larger ships.

Holland American Cruise Lines announced to the Antigua delegation that they will increase calls to the destination for the 2012/2013 season from 6 to 7 and while Seaborne will increase its calls over 100% from 13 to 31. The Seaborne line cruise executive Timothy Littley who has responsibility for Deployment and Itinerary planning indicated that "Antigua is a linchpin destination in their itinerary and the increase has been supported by high satisfaction scores of their up-market clientele"

In another joint meeting with executives from the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (RCL), it was revealed that visitor appeal ratings and customer satisfaction scores for Antigua and Barbuda had remained consistently high at 8.2 and 8.0 respectively during the past year. This is above the regional average of 7.8 for Royal Caribbean, whose lines include Celebrity and Azamara Cruises, which accounts for the largest percentage of cruise passengers visiting the country.

Royal Caribbean indicated that the results of our destination's lobbying effort to return ships to the region which had been redeployed to Europe was very encouraging as the cruise liners were now beginning to re-evaluating this strategy. The return of home porting services to San Juan PR will also help the region's cruise industry as it will once again allow for the destination's inclusion on the critical 7 day itinerary.

Paul Gauguin Cruises (PG Cruises) also announced to the delegation its plans to make inaugural calls to the destination in the upcoming cruise season. PG Cruises is a small luxury liner rated by Conde Nast Traveller as one of the top 5 small cruise ships in the world.

“Antigua and Barbuda is fully committed to taking whatever decisions are necessary to bring ships to our destination during the critical summer months.  A key component of our cruise strategy is to further grow the business during the slow season, so that the economic impact is felt throughout the entire year,” said Minister Maginley. 
 
Members of the delegation also met with Giora Israel, Senior Vice President of Port and Destination Development for the Carnival Corporation to explore long term strategic planning with regards to Port Development and the possibility of including Antigua and Barbuda in its Southern Caribbean itinerary. The discussion was very encouraging and he expressed the Corporation’s desire to work with the destination with whom “Carnival has an excellent relationship.”

In an effort to market the positive attributes of the destination among the cruise executives, Antigua and Barbuda secured an exclusive inclusion with a 4 page spread as the only Caribbean country featured in the special edition of the Seatrade Cruise Review magazine, produced especially for the event. This was included in the welcome bags distributed to all show attendees.

606,485 cruise passengers visited Antigua and Barbuda in 2011 which represents a growth of 9% over the previous year.


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