The arrival of the 22-member executive of United States-based Travel Leaders Network (TLN) in Jamaica last Sunday was not met with any obvious fuss or fanfare. But it was a key development for Jamaica’s tourism industry.

TLN, with its 60,000 agents, was bringing its annual retreat to Jamaica and, by extension, to the Caribbean, for the first time since Carlson Wagonlit and Vacation.com, two powerful leisure companies merged in 2011 to form the network.

Its thousands of travel advisor-members, who sell hotel rooms in bulk, are among the most influential and successful in the US and Canada, and their visit to Sandals, Montego Bay, St James, is a signal they are turning their attention to the Caribbean, said TLN President Roger Block.

“We were invited to come by Sandals Resorts International (SRI) with which we have a thriving 18-month partnership,” Block said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer at a welcome dinner Sunday evening.

TLN operates out of New York, with offices in Alexandria, Virginia and Minneapolis, Minnesota representing over 5,500 locations and controlling up to 90 per cent of the leisure travel market, the Caribbean being a mere 15 per cent of that.

Block, who received a piece of Jamaican art from SRI Executive Chairman Adam Stewart who welcomed the group and made a presentation on his vision of the Sandals of the future, said the two-day retreat covered planning for 2023; new advertising programmes; new technology being developed; and strategic approaches to increase revenues and solicit new agencies beyond the average 250 it recruits a year.