The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism is thrilled to have come in as the number one destination in the Caribbean and Mexico category in the global TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice 2011 listings.

A 2007 agreement signed by Caribbean leaders to move the region towards a shared airspace appears to have been delayed, the leader of a regional tourism organization said.

Jamaica’s Ministry of Tourism named Josef Forstmayr chairman of a special tourism competitiveness task force designed to find “meaningful and creative solutions” to “significant challenges facing the hospitality sector,” said Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s tourism minister.” Forstmayr is president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) and managing director of Montego Bay’s Round Hill Hotel and Villas.

Curacao’s tourism association, CHATA, has given American developer Jack Marshall its 2011 Industry Award. Marshall was given the award “for his achievement of developing the Santa Barbara area” on this Dutch Caribbean island. With the advent of Santa Barbara Plantation, the door is open to make Curacao a major resort destination.

An appeals court, handing Miami-Dade County a victory in a long legal battle, says billboards on a vacant hotel building alongside Interstate 95 -- which include a banner for county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina -- must come down. Agreeing with Miami-Dade County, an appeals court has ruled that billboards covering the vacant City Inn, which sits along Interstate 95, are illegal and must come down. A banner for county mayoral candidate Julio Robaina occupies the rooftop above the Landshark Lager ad.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that European air transport authorities dealt much better with managing traffic during the eruption of Iceland’s Grimsvötn volcano. At the same time, IATA said the absence of a formal agreement at the political level to respond to volcanic eruptions in a coordinated and harmonized manner leaves passengers and shippers vulnerable to fragmented decision-making.