The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) announced that Saint Lucia will host the inaugural CTO Latin American Market Summit on May 5-6, 2027.
The announcement was made this week at World Travel Market (WTM) Latin America in Brazil.
The one-and-a-half-day summit is designed to deepen ties between Caribbean tourism stakeholders and the fast-growing Latin American travel market. It will convene Latin American airlines, tour operators, travel agents, media representatives and partner destinations to identify opportunities, build commercial partnerships and advance regional collaboration.
Key objectives include positioning the Caribbean as a premier destination for Latin American travellers, sharing market research and insights through panels and keynote sessions, enabling direct one-on-one business meetings, and strengthening cooperation with CTO Allied Members, ACI-LAC and other industry partners. The event will also feature showcases of individual Caribbean destinations.
A major focus will be on improving air connectivity between the Caribbean and Latin America. Organisers plan to build on findings from the CTO Air Connectivity Study, which highlighted capacity gaps and significant potential for new air services to key South American markets, including Argentina, Chile and Brazil.
South America was the Caribbean’s strongest-performing source market in 2025, with arrivals rising 23.7 per cent to 2.4 million visits. Officials attribute the surge to better air links, targeted marketing campaigns and rising outbound demand from the region, which has helped diversify the Caribbean’s traditional source markets.
“Saint Lucia is honoured to host the 2027 CTO Latin American Market Summit with a strong focus on connectivity and strengthening ties with Latin America,” said Saint Lucia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, Commerce, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Heritage, Dr Ernest Hilaire.
Speaking in São Paulo at WTM Latin America, he added: “By targeting new direct links, we can open fresh markets, boost visitor numbers and revenue, and drive sustainable economic growth across the region’s communities.”
Secretary-General and CEO of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, Dona Regis-Prosper said that “hosting the 2027 summit in Saint Lucia with a dedicated focus on Latin America will allow us to turn insights into action, identifying new routes, forging partnerships, and delivering tangible benefits for our member countries”.
The event, to be held just before the start of the legendary Saint Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival, is expected to include targeted sessions on route development, market intelligence and partnership-building initiatives.
Heliar have you put something in place for st lucia traveling to and through Martinique to st lucia and others which are having difficulties up to this day to get a flight let me know know please
For decades, St. Lucia’s governments from both political parties have placed all their tourism eggs in one basket. Their primary focus has been to attract North American and UK visitors mostly during Winter months in the Northern Hampshires. Once the Summers roll in at those latitudes, the hospitality industries becomes almost stagnant in St. Lucia.
This lack of revenue during the summer months can be easily supplemented by tapping into the Latin America’s large cities like Bogota, Brasilia, Buenos Aries, Santiago, Montevideo, Tourism markets and other cities located in Southern Hampshires experiencing their Winter months.
Currently the Dominican Republic, Curacao, Aruba, Martinque, and St. Martin have embraced this model by creating entertainment venues such as Salsa music festivals and various gastronomy staples for the various visitors cultures.
With St. Lucia’s geographical location, and topography the island can successfully compete with any island country in the Caribbean for the lucrative tourism markets from South America during the summer months begin from mid-May thru mid-September.
More importantly, flights from all the foregoing focus cities to the Dominican Republic and St Martin the largest South American tourists markets during that period, makes St. Lucia highly competitive reducing the travel time by air in some case by 2-3 hours.
Effective marking strategy can even successfully add Panama with a large Afro-Caribbean community in Colon to the list of focus cities.
Time to get busy Hilaire.