Positive Tourism News wins online media award

LetsDoitInThe Caribbean.com (Positive Tourism News), the Jamaican distribution channel and online news media, which is uniting the Caribbean as one marketplace, was the big winner at the recently held African Diaspora World Tourism Awards on April 27 at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

Flame Keepers in Media Award for Online Publication was conferred on LetsDoitInThe Caribbean.com (Positive Tourism News). Sharon Parris-Chambers, co-founder and producer, was on hand to receive the award. Parris-Chambers and her husband, Theo Chambers founded Positive Tourism News in 2000 as a way to bring more positive attention to Jamaican tourism and to the wider Caribbean, as an alternative to negative news affecting the region.

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

To further strengthen its impact on focusing on the success of the small island nation, the birthplace of 'one love' and reggae music, the Chambers began the production of Caribbean Tourism Roundtable, a weekly radio feature on Power 106 FM. During its two-year stint, the husband-and-wife team won an award for excellence in broadcast journalism for the programme titled Jamaica's One Love Message and its Link to World Tourism in June 2003.

Kitty Pope, founder and producer of the event, said of the award for media, "The award is for websites and online media that have done much toward promoting black travel, and black cultural and heritage tourism."

This award has proven that online distribution has become a disruptive innovation in the way people communicate, engage in social networking, market and promote products and services, particularly as it relates to tourism - locally, regionally and internationally.