St. Vincent / the Grenadines Tourism Names New CEO
The newly formed St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority (SVGTA), created by the country’s Ministry of Tourism to promote the destination and regulate quality standards for local service providers, has named Yvonne Armour-Shillingford as chief executive officer.
A seasoned tourism and hospitality veteran and the first person to hold the new post, Armour-Shillingford was most recently one of four Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) consultants to the European Union-funded Caribbean Regional Sustainable Tourism Development Program. During her six-year tenure, she managed the Human Resource Development component of this project.
In her new position as CEO of the SVGTA, Armour-Shillingford’s main focus will be to increase St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ profile as an off-the-beaten track destination. She brings to the post over 25 years of local, regional and international experience in the tourism and hospitality industry.
She has managed a variety of internationally funded development projects; fluent in French, and proficient in Spanish and Creole, she was Lead Consultant responsible for planning, coordinating and implementing Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/CTO Health and Tourism Sensitization workshops in Martinique and Guadeloupe. In addition, she has also worked as an Education Administrator and Educator/Teacher Trainer in Dominica and Trinidad, as well as with the United Nations Development Program based in Haiti.
As a Certified Hospitality Educator by American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), Armour-Shillingford has educated persons at all levels within the industry, ranging from public and private sector policy makers, to front-line tourism and hospitality personnel, to ancillary service providers.
In the private sector, she served as a managing director leading organizational change for a consortium of tourism and hospitality operators in Dominica. St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a string of 32 islands in the southern Caribbean, located 1,500 miles southeast of Miami.
