Hotel Association relaunches site

The revamped website of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Hotel and Tourism Association (SVGHTA) is expected to play its part in boosting the tourism industry here.{{more}}

The new site, which cost more than EC$200,000 to develop, was unveiled last Thursday at the Sunset Shores conference room, with industry stakeholders on hand to witness the milestone event.

President of the SVGHTA Bianca Porter, in her welcome remarks, indicated that the previous website: www.svghotels.com had outlived the changing times as well as the needs of its members, and was finally revitalized, thanks to financing from the European Union and the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, through its ICT SFA 2005 programme.

According to Porter, the new site, with the same web address, offers more to the association’s members and visitors to the site alike, with new features such as a niche market, special offers, events pages, social networks links and links to corporate partners and members.

Tourism visitors’ statistics, Google maps and a PDF version of the tourism magazine ‘Ins and Outs’ will also be available on the site, among other features.

Charmaine Tappin-John, ICT Development Program Coordinator, indicated that the project was successfully completed after almost one year of work.

She said that all objectives for the revamped site were achieved; these included the provision of ongoing technical support to the members of the SVGHTA, ensuring that the website and content featured are kept up to date, and the high visibility and availability of the site.

The site was designed by Trinidad and Tobago communications firm Lonsdale, Satchi and Satchi, with a sub contract going to Jamaica based Pan Media Inc.

Tourism Minister Glen Beache touched on the issue of a ‘booking engine’ (an application by which persons can book flights, hotels, holiday packages etc. online), not available on the SVGHTA site, but on

that of the Ministry of Tourism’s www.discoversvg.com site.

He indicated that, among other things, having two somewhat similar sites with the same booking engine would not be logical, and that the latter’s website was developed first.

He said that he hoped that an amicable solution could be worked out between the two groups.

Feature speaker Dr. Jerrol Thompson, the Minister of Telecommunications, lauded the SVGHTA for the new look site which he said will boost this country’s tourism sector.

He called on the stakeholders to do their best to promote themselves using the site in order to get the most out of the industry.