Leah Marville to present on entertainment tourism at 21 – 23 October State of the Industry Conference at World Trade Center in Curaçao
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Professional model, television host and former Miss Barbados World Leah Marville has been confirmed as a presenter for the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)’s State of the Industry Conference (SOTIC) in Curaçao from 21 – 23 October 2015.
Marville, whose company My Destination Weekend organizes weekend experiences in the Caribbean “so travellers can experience everything in the destination”, will present on entertainment tourism and how the Caribbean can derive greater benefit from hosting entertainment events.
“We have been practicing entertainment tourism but we haven’t developed it as a sector as we should. In the last two to three years social media has significantly impacted what we do and when we come to understand what the generations want from an entertainment vacations we will start to create experiences around social media. We will have certain things around our events that will start to create virality,” Marville said.
“People want local experiences and want to connect with cultures. People are looking to document each and every step of the way to show what they are doing and that makes other people want to buy in to the experience, and they can go back home and talk about. Entertainment tourism is about content creation, using our individual cultural experiences to develop wider entertainment experiences for people to enjoy, which is what the new age traveller is looking for,” she added.
Marville, who was crowned Miss Barbados World in 2009, has modelled professionally for South Africa’s Base Model Management, German model agency East West Models and RED model management in New York. She has appeared in several magazine publications, including Cosmopolitan Elle and Marie Claire, and was named the Sexiest Woman Alive by Global Beauties in 2009. She also is a former host on Splash, a Caribbean lifestyle series on Black Entertainment Television (BET)’s sister network Centrick.
Marville will be part of a panel entitled, Business Opportunities: Teach Me to Niche on Friday 23 October.
The keynoter for the conference is JetBlue Airways CEO Robin Hayes.
The CTO State of the Industry Conference is the pre-eminent tourism gathering in the region. It brings together tourism decision-makers, including ministers, commissioners and directors of tourism, hotel and airline executives, travel agents, students, the media and persons directly and indirectly involved in tourism. It is preceded by CTO business meetings, including meetings of the board of directors and the Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism.
This year’s conference, which has as its theme, Caribbean Tourism: Growth Through Innovation, is organized in collaboration with Curaçao’s Ministry of Economic Development and the Curaçao Tourism Board, with support from the United Nations tourism agency, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). It will be held at the World Trade Center in Willemstad.
For more information on SOTIC, including how you can register, participate and benefit, visit www.onecaribbean.org. For a personal welcome by Curaçao’s Minister of Economic Development Stanley Palm, please click on the following link: http://bit.ly/1K1V2Xg.
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