Kingston To Host CTO Air Connectivity Summit

Jamaica will host the second Caribbean Tourism Organization Air Connectivity Summit in Kingston on Feb. 23, 2027, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said at the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Antigua and Barbuda on May 15. The meeting is intended to carry forward a regional push to improve air links across the Caribbean after the first summit was held in Bermuda on Feb. 24, 2026. Organizers have framed the event as a forum for tourism ministers, airlines, airports and other industry officials to address route development, intra-Caribbean travel and long-haul access. Bartlett said the Kingston meeting will also come one week after Global Tourism Resilience Day on Feb. 17, a U.N.-designated observance that Jamaica has championed. ### Why is Jamaica hosting the next summit? Edmund Bartlett said Jamaica would host the 2027 summit in Kingston after Bermuda staged the inaugural event this year. He announced the plan while speaking at Caribbean Travel Marketplace in Antigua and Barbuda, according to a press release distributed on May 15. (searchlight.vc) Kingston gives Jamaica a chance to convene airline partners and regional officials around what Bartlett called “the future of air connectivity in our region.” Jamaica’s tourism ministry has separately said the country had direct connections to more than 55 international gateways as of September 2025, a figure it used to describe Jamaica as the Caribbean’s most connected destination. (searchlight.vc) ### What did the first Bermuda summit actually cover? The first CTO Air Connectivity Summit took place on Feb. 24, 2026, at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club in Bermuda as part of the organization’s Spring Business Meetings. The event was billed under the theme “Integrating Aviation and Regional Tourism Development.” (searchlight.vc) CTO said the Bermuda agenda brought together tourism ministers, airline executives, airport leaders and policymakers to address what it called one of the region’s most persistent challenges: improving air access. Scheduled speakers included executives from American Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Contour Aviation and BermudAir, alongside tourism officials from Bermuda and Barbados. (onecaribbean.org) ### Which issues are driving the talks on regional air links? Rosa Harris, chair of the CTO Airlift Committee and director of tourism for the Cayman Islands, said at the Bermuda meeting that air connectivity is “our oxygen” and “an economic lifeline” for the region. She said delegates discussed capacity gaps, high taxes and fees, and the need for stronger intra-regional and long-haul services. (onecaribbean.org) The CTO airlift study presented in Bermuda pointed to steady traffic growth but also to gaps in Europe and key South American markets, including Italy, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, according to the summit wrap-up. Harris said destinations should build stronger business cases for airlines, use collaborative marketing to reduce route risk and make better use of existing infrastructure. (searchlight.vc) ### What came out of the Bermuda meeting besides speeches? The Caribbean Tourism Organization and Airports Council International–Latin America and the Caribbean signed a memorandum of understanding on Feb. 24, 2026, at the close of the Bermuda summit. The agreement set out a non-binding framework for cooperation on air access, institutional capacity and tourism-aviation coordination across CTO member states. (searchlight.vc) Dona Regis-Prosper, CTO’s secretary-general and chief executive, said the agreement reflected a shared view that stronger collaboration between aviation and destination stakeholders would shape the future of Caribbean tourism. ACI-LAC Director General Rafael Echevarne said the accord was meant to support more coordinated planning, policy dialogue and capacity building. CTO said the memorandum will remain in effect for an initial three-year period. (onecaribbean.org) ### Who is expected to be involved in Kingston? The 2026 Bermuda summit drew ministers and directors of tourism, airline executives, airport leaders and other industry stakeholders, and the Kingston meeting is being positioned as the next version of that gathering. Bartlett said Jamaica intends to use the summit to bring airline partners together and to support regional planning. (onecaribbean.org) CTO said its Bermuda event was designed to align ministers, airline leaders, airport authorities and tourism executives in one forum. That structure offers the clearest guide to the likely participant mix for Kingston, although a detailed 2027 agenda has not yet been published. ### What happens next before February 2027? (searchlight.vc) Feb. 23, 2027 is the date Jamaica has set for the Kingston summit, according to Bartlett’s May 15 announcement. The meeting is expected to follow the first summit’s work on route development, regional coordination and aviation-tourism cooperation, while the CTO-ACI-LAC memorandum signed in Bermuda remains in force through its initial three-year term. (searchlight.vc) (onecaribbean.org)