Caribbean Media Awards Honor Tourism’s Best Storytellers

How the CTO’s annual awards — and a bold new digital platform — are reshaping the narrative of Caribbean travel

Every year, the Caribbean tourism industry converges on New York City for Caribbean Week — a stretch of summits, roundtables, and networking events that draws tourism ministers, travel trade professionals, and destination marketers from across the region. But among all the deal-making and strategy sessions, one moment consistently rises above the rest: the Caribbean Media Awards Luncheon, where the journalists, broadcasters, and digital creators who tell the Caribbean’s story are finally put in the spotlight themselves.

This year’s ceremony, held on June 7 and sponsored by the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism, was a particularly resonant one. The honorees represented a wide swath of Caribbean storytelling — from the glossy pages of National Geographic and the trade desks of travel industry publications, to investigative journalism networks, diaspora media, and podcast studios in Trinidad & Tobago. Together, they made a compelling case for why the media ecosystem around Caribbean tourism matters as much as any marketing budget or airline route.

Why Storytelling Is Tourism’s Most Powerful Asset

The Caribbean is the world’s most tourism-dependent region, contributing over 15 percent of GDP across many of its member states. Yet for decades, the dominant narrative surrounding the islands has been stubbornly shallow — sun, sand, sea, and little else. That simplification does real damage, both to traveler expectations and to the communities that host them.

That’s why the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s (CTO) annual media awards carry weight beyond a luncheon ceremony. By naming and celebrating journalists who dig deeper — who write about marine conservation, the diaspora experience, cultural heritage, and the social complexities of cruise tourism — the CTO is actively signaling what kind of coverage it wants to attract and what kind of destination the Caribbean aspires to be.

“Great storytelling has the power to transform perceptions and create deeper connections between people and destinations,” said CTO Secretary-General and CEO Dona Regis-Prosper. The individuals recognized through the awards, she noted, are helping to tell a more complete story of the region — one that goes far beyond beaches and resorts to reflect its people, heritage, and contemporary realities.

That vision is increasingly aligned with how modern travelers make decisions. Research consistently shows that today’s traveler, particularly millennials and Gen Z, seeks destinations with authentic cultural experiences and a sense of place. The journalists celebrated at this year’s ceremony are, in practical terms, helping drive that kind of high-value, engaged tourism.

The Winners: A Cross-Section of Caribbean Journalism

Awards were presented across three categories — Storytelling Excellence, Digital and Innovation, and Voices of the Caribbean — and the breadth of the winning work was striking.

In the Storytelling Excellence category, Dana Givens took home the Best Consumer Story award for a National Geographic feature uncovering one of Jamaica’s lesser-known parishes as a hidden gem. It’s the kind of editorial that moves the needle: when a National Geographic story spotlights an under-the-radar destination, booking inquiries and tour operator interest tend to follow within months. For travelers looking beyond the well-worn Jamaica itinerary, this was a genuine discovery.

Christina Jelski of Travel Weekly earned Best Trade Article for her in-depth conversation with Joy Jibrilu, former Director General of Tourism for the Bahamas. Trade journalism rarely gets the recognition it deserves, but it shapes how tour operators, travel agents, and corporate travel buyers perceive a destination — making Jelski’s win a nod to the crucial behind-the-scenes influence of B2B travel media.

The podcast space got its due with Ryan Bachoo of Guardian Media in Trinidad & Tobago, whose episode examining the impact of sargassum seaweed on Caribbean tourism won Best Podcast/Radio. Sargassum has been one of the region’s most pressing and underreported tourism challenges — a climate-driven environmental phenomenon that has affected beach experiences across the Eastern Caribbean, threatening both visitor satisfaction and local livelihoods. Bachoo’s willingness to engage with it seriously, rather than avoid it as an inconvenient topic, is exactly the kind of journalism the industry needs.

The Jamaica Tourist Board claimed the Social Media Campaign award for its Reggae Marathon 2025 campaign — a reminder that sports tourism and event-driven travel content continue to punch well above their weight on social platforms.

Investigative Voices and the Diaspora Perspective

Some of the most powerful work recognized at this year’s awards sat firmly outside the typical travel media mold — and that was entirely the point.

Esther Jones of the Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network received Best News Reporting for her examination of how Barbados is navigating the tension between cruise tourism expansion and marine conservation. It’s a story that touches every Caribbean island: cruise passengers bring foot traffic and spending, but also environmental pressure on fragile reef systems and coastal ecosystems. Jones’ reporting gives travelers, policymakers, and tourism operators a more informed lens through which to weigh those trade-offs.

In video, Meschida Philip’s documentary “Echoes of Waltham” earned top honors in the Voices of the Caribbean category, while Ralph Thomassaint Joseph of Documented NY took the Personal Immersive Story prize for a deeply human piece about a Haitian performer navigating deportation fears in New York. That story, as much as any beach feature, speaks to what Caribbean tourism ultimately rests on: the movement of people, their stories, and the communities that form at the intersection of culture and place.

Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald — one of the most recognized reporters covering Haiti and the wider Caribbean diaspora — was named Diaspora Journalist of the Year, a fitting honor for a journalist whose work has consistently illuminated the Caribbean experience far beyond its shores. And Luis Joel Méndez González of Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism took Emerging Journalist of the Year for his investigative series “Esencia,” signaling that the next generation of Caribbean media talent is already doing serious work.

CTO TV: Bringing Caribbean Stories to a Digital-First World

Arguably the most significant announcement to come out of the luncheon had nothing to do with a journalism award. The CTO used the occasion to formally launch CTO TV, a dedicated digital video platform aimed at expanding the organization’s reach and engagement through original content.

The platform will draw from an existing library of more than 700 videos — a substantial content foundation — while building out new programming around leadership interviews, policy discussions, destination features, and tourism innovation stories. Think of it as a purpose-built content hub for anyone who wants to understand Caribbean tourism from the inside: where it’s heading, who’s shaping it, and why the region’s tourism story is far richer than most global media coverage suggests.

For travelers, CTO TV represents a new way to go deeper before — or after — a Caribbean trip. For the industry, it’s a platform that can amplify the region’s voice in an increasingly crowded global travel media landscape. And for journalists and content creators, it signals that the CTO is serious about investing in the storytelling infrastructure that ultimately drives real visitation.

Media, Narrative, and Tourism Recovery

Caribbean tourism has rebounded strongly in recent years following the disruptions of the pandemic era, with multiple destinations reporting record or near-record arrival numbers. But sustaining that momentum — and ensuring it benefits communities broadly rather than concentrating in a handful of mega-resort corridors — requires exactly the kind of nuanced, contextual media coverage that the CTO’s awards celebrate.

When a traveler reads about Jamaica’s greenest parish in National Geographic, or listens to a thoughtful podcast about the environmental cost of sargassum, they come away with a more complete picture of the Caribbean. They make more informed travel choices, seek out more varied experiences, and are more likely to return. That’s not just good for storytelling — it’s good for Caribbean tourism.

The 2026 Caribbean Media Awards made one thing abundantly clear: the journalists and creators doing this work deserve to be recognized. And the region that depends on tourism as its economic lifeblood is well served by having voices this capable telling its story.

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