KRALENDIJK – Tourism Corporation Bonaire (TCB) in partnership with Bonaire Hotel & Tourism Association (BONHATA) organized its first annual Bonaire Tourism Summit on World Tourism Day September 27^th, 2021 at Courtyard by Marriott.

TCB has introduced this new platform to foster collaboration amongst all tourism stakeholders.  Collaboration is a priority for TCB moving forward as we begin to recover, rethink the role of tourism and rebuild a better, healthier and more resilient industry. During the summit TCB shared its vision for tourism development with a presentation titled Bonaire, a resilient Community l Transforming our people and Society. Our focus is to develop an inclusive tourism industry where we focus on low volume, high margin and value driven experiences that are part of our cultural and community’s DNA. TCB shared the highlights of its strategy on the way to move forward to position our island amongst the competition in the world based on DATA and shared some key challenges that the industry is facing at the moment. 

According to TCB CEO, Miles Mercera “It’s a new chapter, on the heels of what was a challenging year, we’ve used this downtime to reinvent ourselves. Hotels have renovated and expanded, and we’ve welcomed new businesses on the island. While we worked to create programs to support our local community and recommit ourselves to sustainability, the island itself has also naturally regenerated. So, in a lot of ways this period of time has been one of preparation, beautification and opportunity. We’re evolving but doing so harmoniously – we’re not changing the raw authenticity and beauty that makes Bonaire, Bonaire.” 

Furthermore, the summit welcomed international keynote speaker Igor Beuker who shared his views on sustainable economic development and innovation. Followed by Jody Diamond, President of Diamond Public Relations, (Bonaire’s PR FIRM) who shared our strategy as a destination, results and actions moving forward post-covid. PR is a strong component of Bonaire’s international positioning strategy.  Mr. Howard Mann who is part of the air service development team also shared some insights on global aviation developments and trends and how TCB together with its stakeholders is investing in future Air Service development opportunities. 

Mr. Rene Paalman was also part of the list of speakers who focused the most important component of our tourism industry which is our people and the Spirit2Serve mindset. Social Innovation (Community Entrepreneurship) is part of our Tourism Recovery Plan of which Rene shared highlights of. 

TCB’s tourism stakeholders also received the opportunity to provide input for the 2022 Marketing initiatives of Bonaire with interactive breakout sessions that were hosted by Claire Sealy, Donna Hudgeon, Elesiër Angel, Veroesjka de Windt and Orlando Fransisca. 

TCB and BONHATA would like to thank all partners who supported and participated in the summit and will continue to invest our time and energy to realize all the goals and initiatives agreed upon during the summit. 

If you have missed the Bonaire Tourism Summit visit TCB’s local Facebook page ‘Tourism Corporation Bonaire’ for the livestream video.