Jamaica shines at Adventures in Travel Expo in New York

Warmer weather over this past weekend was the perfect backdrop for the staging of New York’s biggest travel expo, Adventures In Travel, that took place at the Jacob Javits Convention Centre on Saturday and Sunday.

The expo is designed for both consumers and travel professionals, and thousands turned out to see where their next travel adventure could take them.

Information, giveaways, prizes and tasty treats were voluminous, and over 800 top destinations and travel providers dazzled the attendees by creating spaces at the expo to replicate the look and the vibe of their products. Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa growled with safari opportunities to see big cats. Thailand pushed the allure of her magnificent cuisine. The presence of Japan and Pakistan were loud and lavish, each offering attractive sightseeing, mountain retreat experiences and tour packages to their unique destinations. The British Virgin Islands gleefully celebrated the absence of massive crows swarming their destinations, opting instead for personalised, exclusive embraces with most of their guests arriving by private boats and planes to Tortola and Virgin Gorda.

Desert destinations were at the expo too with vivid images of humped camels traversing the sand. The diversity at the show even included companies promoting luggage, travel insurance, long term airport parking and health companies providing vaccinations to high risk faraway destinations. The expo included a round-the-clock schedule of live cultural performances on the Global Beats Stage, and seminars and lectures included fascinating topics such as navigating AI in travel spaces.

The LGBTQ presence at the expo was strong. The New York LGBTQ pavilion was an event sponsor and they invited a Greek company owner to promote packages for interested parties to cruise the Greek Islands and the Mediterranean Sea on small ship luxury vessels.

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Yet Jamaica shone brightly amidst the bacchanal. The eye-popping Jamaica booth was beautifully decorated with bright tropical colours, verdant palm trees and sunny, blue-skies images of Jamaica’s prime resort areas. A team of knowledgeable travel professionals were on hand to initiate new partnerships, negotiate resort deals and to answer any questions and provide guidance on all aspects of the tourism product. And the abundance of printed promotional material alongside servings of freshly brewed Blue Mountain coffee, plantain chips, grater cake and ‘buss-mi jaw’ greatly enhanced the engagement with Jamaica. The efforts of the Jamaica Tourist Board were supported by a number of resorts: Vladimir Reyes from Catalonia Hotels and Resorts; Vernon Johnson, the Cliff Hotel Negril; John Ocosta with Grand Palladium Jamaica Resort & Spa; Khadine Whittiker, Princess Hotels & Resorts; Khenisha Clarke, Secrets Resorts; Angelita McDonald, Deja All-Inclusive Resort; Delano Miller, Blue Diamond Royalton Resorts and Diedre Chapman, Decameron All-Inclusive Hotels.

The JTB team comprised of Victoria Harper, district sales manager, Matthew Blake, business development officer and Carey Dennis, also business development officer. One of Jamaica’s top 50 producing travel specialist, DeAna Haywood was there too and she had this to say. “It was an absolute thrill representing Jamaica at the travel exp, and sharing the vibrancy and warmth of the One Love island was an unforgettable experience.”

And JTB’s district sales manager Victoria Harper was pleased with the strong support for Jamaica. “Our team was gratified by the huge turnout and the impressive level of engagement from consumers for Jamaica”, she told The Gleaner. “We look forward to making 2025 another record-breaking year for Jamaica’s tourism”, Harper added.