| The Anguilla Tourist Board and the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association are partnering in a public awareness campaign to emphasise the importance of the tourism industry to the island’s economy and the livelihood of its people. |
The campaign began on Tuesday this week with the unveiling of one of the Tourism is Key billboards on the Queen Elizabeth Avenue, just west of the Ronald Webster Park. The unveiling of the billboard, by Parliamentary Secretary, Tourism, Haydn Hughes, followed a short launching ceremony chaired by Deputy Director of Tourism, Chantelle Davis. “All of you will recall seeing a banner advertisement proclaiming this message in the weekly editions of The Anguillian newspaper,” Ms. Davis told the gathering. “Those advertisements were launched in September to honour World Tourism Day. Today, as part of the activities for Tourism Awareness Month, which is being observed in November, under the sub-theme of “Partnerships – the Key to Success”, a total of five billboards will be unveiled throughout the island. They are to further sensitise our people to the key role tourism plays in our economic survival.” President of the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association, Mrs. Sherille Hughes, said that Tourism is Key was the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s regional advocacy campaign to raise awareness with regard to the importance of tourism, and its contribution to virtually every sector of the economy, whether in the area of employment, investments or exports. “As partners in the development of tourism, the Anguilla Hotel and Tourism Association and the Anguilla Tourist Board recognised that we have to take a proactive approach to tourism awareness. We cannot afford to stand by and assume that our children, who are our future, understand the importance of this industry. Every effort must be made to re-sensitise them to the importance of the industry. Every effort must be made to raise the level of their consciousness of the scope of tourism, and the integral part it plays in shaping the life-style that we all enjoy.” Mrs. Hughes made the point that at the same time it must not be assumed that persons presently employed in the tourism industry were fully cognisant of the important role that they were required to play in the success of the industry. “Every effort must be made to re-senstise them to the importance of achieving and maintaining excellence in the provision of tourism products and services,” she stressed.” She also expressed the view that it could not be assumed that the partners in the industry were aware of the symbiotic relationship between the tourism sector and their businesses. “By placing these billboards in strategic locationsaround the island, we are taking another major step to ensure that this vital message is placed at the forefront of everybody’s consciousness,” Mrs. Hughes added. “It is time that we accept that Tourism is Key and that we all should treat it with the respect it deserves.” Just before unveiling the first of the five billboards, Parliamentary Secretary, Haydn Hughes, recalled that before tourism in Anguilla, the island’s people were dependent on the seasonal salt industry during the summer months; fishing; subsistence farming or low-paying jobs in the civil service. “With the advent of the tourism industry, in the early 1980s, Anguilla saw the growth and development of not only the tourism industry, but the people of Anguilla,” he went on. “As a result of this important industry, Anguillians have increased their standard of living tremendously. Tourism is indeed key… “It is important that we send this message to everyone of us to understand the importance of having tourists in Anguilla. We also have to understand the ramifications of our behaviour when we go out at night, and the actions that we do, and that will not remain in Anguilla. We live in a global environment where when one thing happens on one side of the world the rest of the world knows. We have to be cognisant of those actions and recognise that we can destroy the goose that laid the golden egg.” He was at the time making a veiled reference to incidence of crime on the island. “Tourism is key for every citizen in Anguilla…and for the sustenance of our lifestyles and for the growth and development of the same,” the Parliamentary Secretary emphasised. “If tourism fails in Anguilla, we all shall fail and that is why tourism is Key.” |
