SVG Tourism Authority appoints Annette Mark as new CEO

Annette Mark has been appointed as the new CEO of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority.

Amongst her first order of business for the new role is on marketing and creating more destination awareness of its 32 islands and cays.

“It’s truly the gem of the Caribbean,” Mark told PressToday on location at Sandals Saint Vincent & the Grenadines. “I’ve travelled to almost every Caribbean island and while each Caribbean island has its own uniqueness, I think what sets St. Vincent and the Grenadines apart is that we have two products in one. We have mainland St. Vincent, which is full of mountains, flower and fauna, black sand beaches and on the other hand we have the Grenadines, coral, some of the most stunning white sand beaches in the world.”

Priorities as CEO

As some parts of the Grenadines were impacting by Hurricane Beryl, her focus is also on getting the affected room inventory back up, encouraging more yachties to visit and improving the visitor experience.

“Marketing is another focus for me and as a result we are bringing on two new marketing people,” she says. “We need to benchmark ourselves with some of the other tourism authorities in the Caribbean to see where we land and what we need to do to bring ourselves up to that level. Rebranding is also on the table for consideration — rebranding, re-messaging, re-tooling. It’s going to be a busy year putting this all together.”

About Mark

Most recently the non-practicing attorney at law served served as the executive director of Invest SVG, responsible for attracting foreign direct investments to the archipelago.

Mark has an impressive career including posts as legal counsel with the Office of Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy and chief of immigration of the Antigua and Barbuda Department of Immigration.

During her tenure she was appointed as the governmental expert for Antigua and Barbuda for the Working Groups of the Implementation Review Group of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Mechanism for the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (MESICIC).

“A strategic plan was done for the Authority before I got there, a marketing plan was done, so that sort of hard work has already been done, so it’s now to implement the best parts and implement the priorities,” she says. “The other thing we need to pay attention to is stats so we are going to develop that department to collect and analyze stats because that informs how and where we market.”

Canadian recovery underway

Shelley John, director of sales, Canada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority, said this is the first year since Covid that the destination has had year-round airlift from Canada.

“We’ve definitely been seeing upward trends from Canada,” she says. “Ensuring that we have year-round flights is important because last year we thought we did and it stopped.” 

With the opening of Sandals Saint Vincent & the Grenadines earlier this year, marking the first all-inclusive in Saint Vincent, Mark adds that airlines have more confidence in committing flights to the destination.

“Occupancy is generally very high,” she adds. “We plan on working with our hotels, Sandals in particular because their marketing machine is incredible.”

To create more year-round demand, Mark will also consider the impact festivals could have on driving visitation.

“We’ve been looking at what events we might be able to put on,” she says. “I’m throwing out the idea of a week of music, food and fashion.”