Joint Caribbean marketing initiative to woo US travellers

Three Caribbean nations have united to offer unprecedented Black Friday and Cyber Monday travel deals.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Thursday, November 22, 2012 – Facing the prospect of a slower than anticipated tourism high season, three Caribbean nations have joined forces to offer an unprecedented Black Friday through Cyber Monday to attract travellers from the United States. 

Through cooperation between the public and private sectors, the tourism boards and hotel associations of Barbados, St Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda are offering 20% off virtually any hotel or resort when booked through their official websites. This is the first time that Caribbean nations are working together in a unified promotion to attract visitors.

"When the words 'fiscal cliff' are uttered on television every 30 seconds it tends to affect consumers' propensity to plan their vacations," said Ashwin Kamlani, president of online booking agent Regatta Travel Solutions, 

"To combat this, these three Caribbean countries are working together in a way never seen before to attract US travellers. I applaud these destination marketing organizations for working with the suppliers in their destinations to put their entire countries on sale. The US has never seen an offer like this out of the Caribbean in history," said Kamlani

The sale launches tomorrow morning (November 23), the day after the US Thanksgiving, which has become known as ‘Black Friday’ and traditionally is a time for discount sales and mass consumer shopping. Consumers will have until midnight on Monday (now known as ‘Cyber Monday’ for the online retail sales) to get 20% off any participating hotel or resort in all 3 countries when booked on the official destination marketing organsation or hotel association website. The discount is available for any participating hotel on stays through December 15th, 2013, without any blackout dates.  Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)