HOTELIER Godfrey Dyer has been elected chairman of the Montego Bay chapter of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association. He replaces Josef Forstmayr, managing director of Round Hill Hotel and Villas, who was recently appointed JHTA president.

According to Dyer, he will be concentrating on getting his members to focus on the product being offered, as well as on the marketing side of the industry.

“When we do our marketing, we need to make sure our visitors are happy with the product,” he told the Observer. “We want everywhere to look like the (tourist friendly) Hip Strip and we’re going to be working with the parish council to clean up downtown Montego Bay.”

He added that there would also be advertising blitzes carried out in shopping malls in Jamaica’s main markets, through which consumers would be directly targeted.

“We’ll go to places like Atlanta, Miami, New York and do what we call consumer promotions that go straight to the public,” he explained. “We will go into the malls of the major gateways. We’ll invite travel agents and tour operators from the area but these promos will go directly to the public.”

Dyer said that these promotional campaigns, that include about 25 persons, have worked successfully in the past, and he was, therefore, optimistic that they would reap similar results this time around.

“The results have always been good, we just need to do some more of it and build Montego Bay,” he said. “Air Jamaica has been very generous, over the years, in these promotions, by providing heavily discounted tickets. We are to have discussions with the airline along those lines, but we know we’ll have to pay the going rate for the accommodations once we get there.”

Dyer, who is also a past president of the JHTA, owns The Wexford, a small hotel situated along Montego Bay’s Gloucester Avenue. Earlier this year, he successfully battled the Financial Sector Adjustment Company for the property that was up for sale because of ballooning interest rates on outstanding loans.

Since then, he has launched a marketing campaign for The Wexford that includes a strong local thrust. Patrons are encouraged to take advantage of the Sunday morning brunch special, and other promotional events include gimmicks like a weekend fish fry. According to him, they had about an 85 per cent occupancy in early August.