Palm Beach — SITE Florida & Caribbean, a chapter of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives hosted its annual Educational Forum here on Friday, May 16th, 2014, at the Marriott Aruba Resort & Stellaris Casino, inviting local hospitality executives, university students and students of the local secondary education students, hospitality stream, for and interactive and engaging learning experience.
The Educational Forum began with a continental breakfast and registration, followed by keynote speaker Rebecca Mebane, who discussed Sustainability Practices and Green Meetings for incentive destinations and planners interested in incentive trends. Dahlton Bennington, Meetings and Motivation in Florida, addressed The New Norm in Motivation and Incentive Business, while Doyle Girouard, Cypress Group, talked about Incentives from Beginning to End, when is it really over?!
Sumptuous lunch was served courtesy of the culinary brigade of the Marriott Aruba Resort & Stellaris Casino. The occasion include the exclusive unveiling of Gain InSite Caribbean, an exciting Member to Member business model, with Myrna Jansen, senior advisor to the Minister of Tourism in attendance.
Two sessions in the afternoon, one by Doyle Girouard, Cypress Group, continued his morning address, and to conclude the day the panel of speakers expertly described Customer Service for Incentives, and the ever demanding changes of business today.
A congenial reception and a certificate ceremony followed sponsored by the Aruba Tourism Authority.
SITE, the host organization is first of all a network of incentive and meeting professionals. Site members are part of an international community, benefitting from great networking which facilitates the challenge of finding business opportunities, exchanging information and knowledge with other business partners. SITE is an important partner of the Aruba tourism industry wishing to claim its share in the MICE, Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions industry.
Wichita Villacres, President, ECO Destination Management Services of Aruba & Curaçao, who is the President of the 2014 SITE Florida and Caribbean chapter, announced educational forum in Aruba, in an effort to bring educational content to the Caribbean.
Villacres whose life-long career in tourism is closely intertwined with the island of Aruba became President of the 2014 SITE Florida and Caribbean chapter, at the beginning of the year, as the first ever, new President, proud to represent Aruba.
In her role as President and ECO of Destination Management Services of Aruba & Curaçao, Wichita has been a member of SITE for 25 years, and she actively participated and formed part of one SITE university, one SITE conference in Aruba, and one SITE conference in Orlando. Additionally, she has attended at least 20 of these conferences worldwide, including : Maui, Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Orlando, NYC, Cancun, Montreal, Beijing-China, and more.
As board member of the original Caribbean Chapter, she brought the Florida Chapter closer to incentive planners from Canada, becoming the liaison between the two sister chapters, which are the two first chapters to launch the novel Gain Insite program.

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