The Air Jamaica Vice President of Marketing and Sales explained that the next hurdle for the regional marketing campaign is developing the sustainable
funding formula. 

�Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados has taken a leadership role in that regard and following a meeting in February, we are hopeful there will be unanimous agreement on a formula that will ensure that there are sufficient funds to continue the program well into the future,� he said.

Chastanet stressed that in order for the program to be successful, every effort is necessary to avoid the mistakes that helped propel the decline of the Caribbean's
agricultural sector in the past. He suggested that energies ought to be directed into the entire distribution channel of the Caribbean vacation experience, rather
than solely focusing on the delivery of a product.

CHACT is a public/private sector conglomeration of major hotel chains, airlines and credit card companies which have joined forces with the Caribbean Tourism
Organisation, CARICOM and non-CARICOM nations to market and promote the Caribbean as a single destination. A regional fund has enabled the launch of a
television campaign dubbed "Life Needs the Caribbean".

The overall intent of the campaign is to brand the region and, thereby, compete with other regions of the world that have been attracting increasing Caribbean
market share of the US outbound traveler for nine consecutive years.

Eighteen destinations are participating in the campaign. They are Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Grenada,
Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and the
United States Virgin Islands.