US Virgin Islands Hotel & Tourism Association
Membership Committee: Thank you to our members who attended the Membership Mixer at Lanai at Bluebeard’s Beach Club on July 13. Members enjoyed appetizers while networking and receiving updates on industry news and advertising options with “Visit” and “Places to Explore.” Attendees also had the opportunity to enter to win a business card ad on the “Places to Explore” website and a listing on the new 2018 app.
Environmental Committee: Attention members! USVIHTA wants to know what recycling, composting, reduce and reuse initiatives you are currently undertaking. USVIHTA President Lisa Hamilton is a member of the Governor’s Recycling Task Force, which has held two meetings attended by public and private sector individuals focusing on recycling and composting initiatives. The task force is looking for best practices from both sectors to see how we can move forward with territory initiatives.
Advocacy Committee: The Advocacy Committee recently advocated against Bill 32-0073. According to the proposal from Marvin Blyden, “this bill creates a new real property tax classification known as the villa real property tax to be taxed at a rate on .014170. The classification includes residential real property that is rented, leased or otherwise hired out for a period of time that does not exceed 180 days.” While USVIHTA agreed there should be a separate category, we did not agree with the almost 400 percent increase in property tax year over year. Advocacy Committee members were successful in advocating against the bill, which has been pulled for the time being. USVIHTA President Lisa Hamilton would like to thank our villa rental members for their engagement in the advocacy process. The association and committee will continue to monitor the proposed bill.
CMI: According to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, “On engagement, we’re already seeing that mobile users are more likely to be daily active users than desktop users. They’re more likely to use Facebook six or seven days of the week.”
That means social media channels like Facebook are truly an engaging way to connect with visitors and would-be visitors to the U.S. Virgin Islands because people are online all the time as they travel through their daily lives and while on vacation. That’s why the ChartLocal team, which manages USVIHTA’s digital assets, has been busy ramping up the social media profile of the association and our membership.
But the other main focus is revamping the USVIHTA’s consumer website – virgin-islands-hotels.com. The site’s new framework has been designed to be fully optimized for mobile devices, and publisher Charlotte Atkins and the ChartLocal team are currently updating the content of the sites primary pages to improve the site’s Search Engine Optimization. For those not familiar with the term SEO, it is website technology focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. It involves both the creative and technical elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic and increase your chances of being found by search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Again, it’s behind-the-scenes, but when the new site goes live, it’s not just about a new, refreshed look, but about the website being found more frequently and helping to make sure our members are found and booked!
Our goal is for the new site to be launched on Aug. 11. In the meantime, help us fill our social media channels with engaging content and images. Send social media content – photos, videos, promotions – to Lynnsy Jones at ljones@stthomasthisweek.com. Click here to read the flyer from ChartLocal outlining what we’re looking for!
If you have any questions concerning ChartLocal or digital services, feel free to contact Charlotte at catkins@morriscaribbeanpublications.com.