Emil Lee, the newly sworn-in 27th president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), assumed the position at a time when the association seeks to redefine its role. Lee spoke with Caribbean editor Gay Nagle Myers about his strategic vision for the CHTA amid the opportunities and challenges facing the Caribbean in 2014.
Q: How will you balance your time as general manager of Princess Heights in St. Maarten and head of CHTA?
A: I have well-trained, motivated professionals helping me run Princess Heights, where I've been since 1991, affording me the luxury of being able to invest my time in CHTA without having to worry about my core business. I have full confidence in Jeff Vasser, CHTA's director general and CEO, to take the vision of the board and turn it into reality.
Q: How many member hotels in the CHTA?
A: Our membership includes 33 national hotel associations across the Caribbean region, with over 600 hotel members, approximately 91,000 rooms and more than 300 supplier companies as allied members. Numbers have remained the same over the last two years. We aim to improve them by visiting individual hotel associations to better serve their needs and to demonstrate what CHTA's plans are to make the Caribbean tourism industry a priority across the public and private sectors.
Q: How do you plan to do that?
A: Improve communications between national associations and CHTA; share best practices and worst-case scenarios, so that all members benefit from an information exchange to improve operations.
Q: What are the key issues facing Caribbean hoteliers in 2014?
A: The increasing cost of doing business, especially energy costs, coupled with the downward pressure on rates. CHTA must focus on helping hoteliers boost yields to increase net revenue, control costs and improve product quality.
Q: What's happening with the Caribbean Tourism Development Corp. (CTDC), the joint marketing effort of the CHTA and the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)?
A: More than 600 CHTA members are listed on CaribbeanTravel.com, as are 100% of CTO destination members. Also, 28% of visitors to that site took the next steps and were tracked as leads.
CTDC's primary goal is to help consumers gather destination and property information and utilize the booking options offered by Caribbean tourism-related businesses.
Q: One of your goals is to centralize resources. How will you do that?
A: We have ideas in place to make CHTA the go-to source for research and benchmarking data, but we need to organize this information into a user-friendly format accessible to members. It's one of our top goals in 2014.
Q: What's your background?
A: Born in the U.S. to immigrant Chinese parents that escaped China with nothing but their educations, growing up in a Jewish neighborhood, living on an island half French/half Dutch with a degree in philosophy and biology and now head of CHTA. My background matches the diversity and richness of the Caribbean.
Follow Gay Nagle Myers on Twitter @gnmtravelweekly.