Quality Service Issues: a Multivariate Analysis of Association-Meeting Planner Perceptions of Caribbean Destinations

From 1979 to 1989, meeting industry expenditures, particularly corporatemeeting expenditures, grew explosively-more than tripling. The recent world-widerecession and the international concern for security, however, have caused manyassociation-meeting planners to reassess the need to continue holding overseasmeetings, regardless of the destination. This presents a unique marketing challengeto overseas destinations traditionallydependent upon the United States association-meetings industry. The primary purpose of this research was to determine the qualityand service issues that most affect the attractiveness of 10 Caribbean destinationsas perceived by U. S. association-meeting planners who actually planned meetingsin the Caribbean. Results indicated that the planners perceived the 10 selectedCaribbean destinations differently when comparing grand means as well as individual-cluster means for the categories of Facilities & Services, Recreation, andEntertainment. Consequently, specific marketing strategies for each segment maynow be developed and implemented by Caribbean governments, hotel associations,tourism organizations, and individual properties.