MIAMI – The new President of the Caribbean Hotel Association is Peter Odle, owner and managing director of the 76-room Mango Bay Hotel in Barbados as well as the owner of Island Inn, Sunswept Beach and Regent hotels, all in Barbados.
Odle also assumed the role of chairman of the Barbados Tourism Authority on July 1, replacing Hudson Husbands, who stepped down to pursue business interests in his Tourism Global consulting firm.
The CHA torch was passed to Odle at the recent Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference in Miami from St. Lucian hotelier Berthia Parle, who served as CHA head for the past two years. Odle pledged to follow the path set by Parle to further solidify the partnerships with the Caribbean Tourism Organization, the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association and the European Union; to continue the education and training of Caribbean nationals in the hospitality sector; to reconnect with the small hotels with a possible reinstatement of the Small Hotels Retreat, which was abandoned several years ago; and “to stay on top of the new legislation coming out of Europe, much of which impacts the Caribbean hospitality industry,” he said.
At a high-level task force meeting set for July 20, Odle and his team will re-examine the CHA, now 40 years old. “We’ll look at where we’ve been and where we want to go,” he said. (Travel Weekly News 7/5/06)
