{"id":188770,"date":"2024-08-15T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/?p=188770"},"modified":"2024-08-15T07:27:53","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T11:27:53","slug":"svg-tourism-authority-announces-new-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/svg-tourism-authority-announces-new-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"SVG Tourism Authority appoints Annette Mark as new CEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Annette Mark has been appointed as the new CEO of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority. <\/span><\/p>\n

Amongst her first order of business for the new role is on marketing and creating more destination awareness of its 32 islands and cays.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s truly the gem of the Caribbean,\u201d Mark told PressToday on location at Sandals Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. \u201cI\u2019ve travelled to almost every Caribbean island and while each Caribbean island has its own uniqueness, I think what sets St. Vincent and the Grenadines apart is that we have two products in one. We have mainland St. Vincent, which is full of mountains, flower and fauna, black sand beaches and on the other hand we have the Grenadines, coral, some of the most stunning white sand beaches in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Priorities as CEO<\/h2>\n

As some parts of the Grenadines were impacting by Hurricane Beryl, her focus is also on getting the affected room inventory back up, encouraging more yachties to visit and improving the visitor experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMarketing is another focus for me and as a result we are bringing on two new marketing people,\u201d she says. \u201cWe need to benchmark ourselves with some of the other tourism authorities in the Caribbean to see where we land and what we need to do to bring ourselves up to that level. Rebranding is also on the table for consideration \u2014 rebranding, re-messaging, re-tooling. It\u2019s going to be a busy year putting this all together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

About Mark<\/h3>\n

Most recently the non-practicing attorney at law served served as the executive director of Invest SVG, responsible for attracting foreign direct investments to the archipelago. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mark has an impressive career including posts as legal counsel with the Office of Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy and chief of immigration of the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Immigration.<\/span><\/p>\n

During her tenure she was appointed as the governmental expert for Antigua and Barbuda for the Working Groups of the Implementation Review Group of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (MESICIC).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA strategic plan was done for the Authority before I got there, a marketing plan was done, so that sort of hard work has already been done, so it\u2019s now to implement the best parts and implement the priorities,\u201d she says. \u201cThe other thing we need to pay attention to is stats so we are going to develop that department to collect and analyze stats because that informs how and where we market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Canadian recovery underway<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Shelley John, director of sales, Canada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority, said this is the first year since Covid that the destination has had year-round airlift from Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely been seeing upward trends from Canada,\u201d she says. \u201cEnsuring that we have year-round flights is important because last year we thought we did and it stopped.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the opening of Sandals Saint Vincent & the Grenadines earlier this year, marking the first all-inclusive in Saint Vincent, Mark adds that airlines have more confidence in committing flights to the destination. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOccupancy is generally very high,\u201d she adds. \u201cWe plan on working with our hotels, Sandals in particular because their marketing machine is incredible.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To create more year-round demand, Mark will also consider the impact festivals could have on driving visitation. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been looking at what events we might be able to put on,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m throwing out the idea of a week of music, food and fashion.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Annette Mark has been appointed as the new CEO of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority. Amongst her first order of business for the new role is on marketing and creating more destination awareness of its 32 islands and cays. \u201cIt\u2019s truly the gem of the Caribbean,\u201d Mark told PressToday on location at…<\/span>more ›<\/a>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"kia_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,12,1,275],"tags":[2198,2199],"front_page":[],"class_list":["post-188770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appointments","category-destination","category-news","category-tourism-organizations","tag-saint-vincent-and-the-grenadines","tag-svg"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188770"},{"taxonomy":"front_page","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.travelpress.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/front_page?post=188770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}