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The MPE Caribbean Report Newsletter offers travel, tourism, Caribbean and global news weekly. To share stories, information or intelligence, contact us at info@marketplaceexcellence.com. | |
Junkanoo returns to the Bahamas | |
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Junkanoo is one of the Caribbean’s most celebrated and spirited carnivals.
Credit: Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, Investments & Aviation
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After a two-year hiatus, Junkanoo, the national cultural festival of the Bahamas, returns for its largest celebration in downtown Nassau on Boxing Day (December 26, 2022) and January 2, 2023.
Junkanoo is a cultural festival that represents the rich heritage of the African diaspora and is a colorful tradition that speaks to the strength and resilience of the Bahamian people.
Festivities will take place in Grand Bahama Island, Bimini, Eleuthera, Abaco, Long Island, Cat Island, Inagua and Andros.
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American Airlines to launch daily service to the British Virgin Islands | |
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American Airlines (AA) is launching more Caribbean flying from its Miami hub with new service to Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport (EIS) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
The new seasonal flight, operated daily by Envoy with an Embraer E175 aircraft, will start on June 1, 2023, and will run through the summer, restarting again in November.
“We are proud to operate as the leading airline in South Florida, offering our customers an unrivaled network in the Caribbean and Latin America with service from the Miami hub to more than 70 destinations in the region,” said Juan Carlos Liscano, American Airlines Vice President – Miami. “This year demand has remained strong for Miami travel, and we’re looking forward to further growth in 2023 with a new and unique destination in the Caribbean that our customers love – the British Virgin Islands.”
“We are very happy to welcome back American Airlines to the British Virgin Islands. This venture to have direct flights between Miami and the British Virgin Islands will make it significantly easier, faster and more affordable for persons from around the world to come to the British Virgin Islands, which is one of the must-visit tourist destinations in the world,” said BVI Minister of Communications and Works, Kye Rymer. “Our residents will also benefit from convenient connections for business and leisure travel to dozens of destinations across American’s route network.”
AA last served the BVI in March 2013 via the former San Juan hub.
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Royal, Carnival register big booking days | |
At left, Royal Caribbean’s new Icon of the Seas. | At right, Carnival wants passengers to “Choose Fun”! | |
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Black Friday was Royal Caribbean International’s single largest booking day in its 53-year history, which marked the third time the record was broken in 2022 and the peak of what is now the brand’s highest volume booking week.
The strong demand and performance demonstrated by the two latest records come on the heels of the first look at the new Icon of the Seas, and the record-breaking day reported when the highly anticipated ship opened for bookings 15 months ahead of its January 2024 debut.
Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Line got a jumpstart on what it hopes will be a busy 2023 cruise season as it posted a record Cyber Monday booking day last Monday that was 50 percent above volume for Cyber Monday 2019.
The pent-up demand for cruising has manifested in multiple ways in 2022, as Carnival was the first major cruise line to have its entire fleet back in operation.
Earlier this year, Carnival said that the one-week period of March 28-April 3 was its busiest booking week in the company’s history, showing a double-digit increase from the previous record seven-day booking total.
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Seatrade Cruise Global set for Fort Lauderdale | |
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The world’s largest cruise trade conference, Seatrade Cruise Global, is moving from Miami, returning to Fort Lauderdale next year.
The 2023 conference and exhibition will be held at the newly renovated Greater Fort Lauderdale Broward County Convention Center, March 27-30, 2023.
The four-day event is expected to attract more than 10,000 attendees, bringing together cruise professionals, thought leaders and innovators from all facets of the industry.
Learn more from Chiara Giorgi, Global Brand & Event Director, Seatrade Cruise Events, in the clip below.
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Building your digital audience
The world recently became a family of 8 billion people, and the digital audience is more than half of that population. Getting the attention of the online community can be tricky, so here are a few tips to build the right audience.
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Awareness: The audience is always at different stages of learning about or using your brand, therefore it is of utmost importance to create brand awareness. These messages are targeted to provide information about your brand and increase the user’s education.
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Frequency: A message seen once in today’s complex digital world is a message missed. Increase the frequency of how many times the relevant audience should see your ad or message to create brand recall. Creative and content packaging of the message plays an important role in this communication.
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Engagement: Awareness and frequency primarily represent one-way communication, but driving engagement is the true essence of digital that allows two-way conversations. The audience that is organically responding well to your awareness and frequency messages contributes to building brand trust, image and conversion.
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Conversion and Feedback: While different, they are related. The audience that receives awareness communication and engages with the brand is the right audience for the first trial of the brand or service. The quality of engagement is the final determinant but once converted, customers ought to be contacted during and after the product usage cycle so you can glean important intelligence about your product and the user’s experience.
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Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day takes place on December 12.
UHC Day represents the call for leaders to accelerate efforts toward “Health for All” by lifting people out of poverty, promoting the well-being of families and communities, and protecting against public health crises.
This year’s campaign comes at a critical time when countries are rebuilding from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while facing many other crises such as natural disasters and conflict.
The 2022 theme “Build the world we want: A healthy future for all”,
emphasizes that in order to build strong health systems we need equity, trust, healthy environments, investments, and accountability.
According to a 2018 KPMG report, island health systems face unique challenges on the road to UHC, but they also have unique advantages – not least that they can be nimble, innovative and design care systems that are closer to their communities. These assets can and must be part of the solution to achieving ‘health for all’ across the region. In doing so, the Caribbean region has an opportunity to lead the rest of the world.
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In this week’s MPE Caribbean Report, we feature the views of American Airlines’ Vice President of Network & Schedule Planning on the strength of the Austin, Texas market. | | | | |
