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St. Kitts’ tourism chief meets UK travel trade
St. Kitts Tourism Authority‘s new CEO, Kelly Fontenelle, recently led a delegation to the UK to meet key travel agents and operators.
The aim was to sell St. Kitts as a year-round destination and inspire travellers to explore beyond the beach.
This was CEO Fontenelle’s first visit to the UK since joining the St. Kitts Tourism Authority in July.
She was joined by chief marketing officer, Anita Nightingale, communications co-ordinator, Jonette Boyd and UK trade sales representative, Suzy Trott.
The Minister of Tourism for St. Kitts and Nevis, Honourable Marsha T. Henderson, was also in attendance during the earlier part of the visit in mid-November.
The itinerary included individual visits to tour operators and travel agents including Trailfinders, Sackville Travel, Dnata, Lotus Travel, and Newmont Travel.
They also met with British Airways, which serves the island twice weekly, year-round.
A highlight of the visit was a dedicated travel agent event in Leeds, attended by 25 independent travel trade professionals, on 20 November.
The event, held at Iberica Leeds, comprised networking over drinks and canapes, a presentation on the latest tourism developments in St. Kitts, and a prize draw to win bottles of Kittitian rum.
“It was an honour to spend time with our valued trade partners, during my first visit to the UK since joining the St. Kitts Tourism Authority,” Fontenelle said.
“As one of the smaller Caribbean islands, the trade is vitally important to St. Kitts in driving tourism. Agents with specialist knowledge are invaluable in helping to match the right UK holidaymakers with our destination.”
She added: “We’re traditionally seen as a winter-sun destination, but we have plenty to entertain guests in our summer months, including the St. Kitts Music Festival in June and Restaurant Week in July.”
“This year we have shifted our trade focus from one annual trade roadshow to a series of quarterly in-person events with travel agents and tour operators; and we’ve increased our visits to retail travel agencies, and training via webinars.
The SKTA has hosted 17 agents on Fam trips to St. Kitts this year and have over 4,000 UK agents registered to My St. Kitts Rewards and 1,500 agents registered to the online training programme, .
“We will continue to invest heavily in UK trade events, incentives and training in 2025 and Fam trips will remain key too.”
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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