News Americas, BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012: The Caribbean Tourism Organization has a new chair.
Commissioner of The United States Virgin, Beverly Nicholson-Doty, was elected at the CTO’s Annual General Meeting in St. Kitts last night.
Commissioner Nicholson-Doty was elected unopposed. She will replace Sen. Ricky Skerritt, St. Kitts’ Minister of Tourism and International Transportation, as chairman of the CTO Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism.
Her election came just hours after she told journalists at a press briefing ahead of the opening of the CTO’s State of the Industry Conference, that the Diaspora is major part of the focus of the U.S.V.I.’s marketing thrust and she will share this vision to the wider Caribbean if elected.
Nicholson-Doty formerly served as the director of the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel & Tourism Association. In addition to an extensive background in marketing, Nicholson-Doty was also selected as Executive Director of the Year in 2000 by the Caribbean Hotel Association. She was elected to three consecutive terms as vice president of the Caribbean Society of Hotel Association Executives.
In keeping with the CTO constitution, Deputy Commissioner Chantal Figueroa has been appointed by Commissioner Nicholson-Doty to head the CTO Board of Directors.
Five vice chairs were also elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors. They are St. Maarten, representing the Dutch Caribbean; Martinique representing the French Caribbean; St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, representing the Caribbean Community countries and Bermuda representing the British Overseas Territories. Each of these Member Countries will form the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, which will be completed with representatives from the private sector.
The vote was in keeping with the CTO constitution which mandates that elections must be held every two years.
