The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association first began in 1959 as a committee of the Caribbean Tourist Association – a public/private sector organization created to promote and market the region – in response to a specific hotel lobby. In 1962, CHTA, then Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) became an autonomous body as a not-for-profit limited liability corporation registered in the Cayman Islands.
Membership in the original CHA back in 1962 was made up of a number of independent hotels that shared an international profile, and therefore had common concerns, most significantly with the US tour operators. As CHA grew, the number of hotels increased and the geographic footprint of the organization began to expand. The industry was predominantly made up of smaller properties, with the larger branded hotels being limited to Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and to a lesser extent the Netherland Antilles. In the early days membership came from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica, Haiti, Aruba and Curacao. By the 1990’s CHA’s membership extended from Bermuda in the north to Guyana and Suriname in the south, and from Barbados in the Atlantic to Cancun and Cozumel in Mexico, and Belize and Honduras in Central America.
As CHA began to develop as a true federation of territorial associations, it became apparent that the executive directors of these associations held the key to CHA’s success. If they were ignored, they could effectively block CHA’s programs; if they were embraced, they could be of enormous value. CHA borrowed an idea from their involvement with the American Hotel & Motel Association (AH&MA), which embraced its state and city association through a professional body called the International Society of Hotel Association Executives (ISHAE). Consequently in 1985, the Caribbean Society of Hotel Association Executives (CSHAE) was formed, and has since become a core element of the federation.