TOURISM officials from six Caribbean islands will meet in Jamaica next Friday for the first annual two-day travel trade show in a bid to promote the Caribbean destinations to locals.

The event dubbed ‘Caribbean Xplosion’, which kicks off at the Hilton Kingston Hotel in Kingston on Friday and move to the Mandeville Hotel the following day, will also have a number of local attractions on show.

Andrew Sharpe, managing director of Authentic Caribbean Holidays and organiser of the event, told the Observer that the purpose of the show is to encourage Jamaicans to vist more Caribbean destinations.

“We are encouraging Jamaicans, both leisure and corporate, to come and get information on the Caribbean destination as well as some of our local attractions,” he explained.

The islands which will be represented at the show include Antigua, Grenada, St Lucia, St Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, and Nevis.

The twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago will host the show next year with the organisers hoping to see more tourism-related businesses participating in the show.

“We want to have more entities like banks offering vacation loans and insurance companies with travel insurance. just about anything that is related to tourism,” he told the Observer.

The decision to involve Mandeville, Sharpe said, was to build awareness among the large population of returning residents living in that town who prefer to vacation in the Caribbean over other popular spots like the United States.

He said getting the islands to be a part of the event was easy. The problem, however, was there were several other islands that wanted to be a part of the show, but could not at this time.

“They were happy to come onboard,” he said.

“(And others like) Cayman wanted to attend this year but couldn’t because they have another event,” he said, adding that there were others that could not participate because of budgetary constraints.

Persons attending the travel trade show, Sharpe explained, will be allowed to book vacation packages and flights on site at special discounted prices.

Participating islands do not, at present, have any visa restrictions for Jamaicans.