Changing customer expectations and new demands on hotel operations and facilities. Internet transformed distribution systems that require major adjustments in our trading relationships. Vertical and horizontal integration in our primary markets between tour operators, airlines and hotel companies and consequently fewer marketing partners and a competitive environment that seems to be progressively loaded against the independent resort operator.

These are just a few of the forces that continue to challenge the Caribbean hospitality industry and to which practical answers must be found if we are to fulfill our obvious potential and provide the essential employment opportunities needed as other sectors in the region, most notably � agriculture, recede as protective subsidies gradually are removed.
 

Inevitably, there will need to be continuing change in the shape and character of the hospitality sector with a continuing swing toward branded hotels, whether they be by the international hotel chain operators or through an increase in the highly successful Caribbean owned, operated and branded resorts. This process must by necessity begin by including the small independent hotels that make up two thirds of CHA�s membership, since they are particularly vulnerable to the pressure of change. Let me reemphasize comments I made last year at this very same conference. The focus of this conference in its first years has been on the larger hotel sector of our industry. Yet, for many Caribbean countries, there is another aspect of tour industry which has not received the attention it deserves. That of the smaller, independent hotels. It was here that Caribbean tourism had its genesis and it is here that some of the regions most successful hotels give lie to those who maintain that small cannot be profitable or that success depends entirely upon brand identity.  There is, however, a broad spectrum of less well known hotels in the region whose lack of success has given rise to skepticism and be reminded that lack of success is not exclusive to small independents. It is this grouping in our industry that offers the most exciting and greatest potential to those investors and financiers who are prepared to work with those smaller hotel owners, developers and operators.

Edward Malone, President CHA A native of New Hampshire, Ed Malone is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Hotel Administration. He has also received a Certification for Advanced Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America and is a Certified Hotel Administrator through the American Hotel and Motel Association.  With 25 years� experience in the Hospitality Management field, 13 of these in the Caribbean, Malone has extensive Operations background with strong emphasis in Marketing and Accounting. His serious participation in local and regional tourism affairs in Aruba and the Caribbean brings a wealth of experience and knowledge of the challenging issues and opportunities facing the industry in the 1990�s and entering the new millenium.  Malone served as President of the Aruba Hotel and Tourism Association from 1991-1996 and was recognized as General Manager of the Year in Aruba in 1993 and 1994. In 1996, he received the coveted �Golden Conch� Award, as the Caribbean Hotelier of the Year, the most prestigious recognition by the Caribbean Hotel Association. He has represented Aruba since 1987 on the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Hotel Association and has held various elected leadership positions for the CHA since 1990.  He currently serves as President of the CHA until June, 2000.

Professional management and advice on how to counter these problems which can be translated into available funds with which to carry out that advice, will be the ONLY way to prevent multiple closures and the negative grass roots press that is likely to accompany them.

Not only will there need to be an expansion of room inventory, but also the infrastructure and related tourism product improvements with which any hotel�s success will be evaluated. In particular, the national airports, public utilities already on the point of collapse under an expanded load.

All of this points to a surge in the need for investment capital with which to build new hotels and modernize and expand existing product. However, no one should be in any doubt that the Caribbean will be alone in its quest for this capital. The whole world is a player in this highly competitive game.

The Caribbean remains the most exciting and attractive all around vacation destination in the world with its incredible natural assets supported by close proximity to the population densities of North America and increasingly, now Europe.

Already, the Caribbean is a trendsetter in public/private sector partnerships as this conference can attest, but it will be essential for us to continue to build upon and forge new dynamic partnerships that can only result in stronger and more attractive investment incentives, a benign operating environment and consequently improved profits.

All things being equal, the Caribbean tourism industry represents an increasingly more interesting investment opportunity. It is hard to see how it can afford to do anything but prosper.

In a recent visioning exercise, the IH & RA identified five major forces driving global change.

• Capacity Control 
• New Technology
• Safety and Security
• New Management

• Availability of Capital 

For money to be made available, we in the Caribbean have to create and insure and investment climate that creates confidence and produces the required returns which brings us right back to the importance of a joint public/private sector approach to tourism, whereby government mutates from regulator to facilitator and the private sector becomes a more civic minded member of the community.

Just about all of these things are to one degree or another a work in progress, the speed with which it happens will determine whether we succeed or fail  - and failure is not an option.

Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the CHA, it is a pleasure for me to welcome you and thank you for your support of this very important conference.  I encourage you to take full advantage of the extensive knowledge, expertise and experience that each of our invited speakers will share with us and at the same time anticipate that you will enjoy the warm, sincere and generous hospitality being afforded to us by our friends and colleagues in this wonderful country of Barbados.