The Anguilla Tourist Board signed a contract with a new team of marketing representatives for the island’s North American market – the United States and Canada – on Tuesday this week.
The two-year contract is with Cheryl Andrews Marketing Communications of Coral Gables, Florida, and her team. “Cheryl and her team, which includes public relations, sales and marketing, will be offering their services on behalf of our destination,” Director of Tourism, Mrs.Candis Niles, told The Anguillian at the signing ceremony. “Cheryl heads up the PR side of the team and Tim Grace heads up the sales and marketing side of the team.”
Mr. Grace, of the Travel Marketing Network, said there was a team of almost thirty persons altogether between the two companies – but not all working for Anguilla. “We have nine here in Anguilla at the moment,” he went on. “We are also represented in Canada and in Houston so there is a large team with a vast technical experience to support the Anguillian initiative.”
Ms Andrews said: “There is a great opportunity for public relations to grab hold on all the wonderful things that Anguilla has to offer by bringing the right journals here on all platforms – whether it is digital TV and print such as high glossy travel magazines and newspapers across the country. We will have them tell the story to all their readers [and viewers].”
Asked whether there would be a new branding slogan for marketing Anguilla’s tourism, Ms. Andrews replied: “We would be wrong to come in here and say this is what it is going to be. That is a branding exercise we are going to do with the Tourist Board and the Stakeholders to take place as soon as we can.”
Chairman of the Tourist Board, Leslie Richardson, commented in part: “We are totalling moving away from our past. It is a matter for us to really take a fresh look at it. All the good things we will continue with – and there are certainly a lot of areas we can move forward into. The contract is nothing outrageous. It is just basic. The bottom line is for us to put our heads together for Anguilla. It is a two-year term contract and we will see where that will take us at the end.”He declined to disclose the cost of the contract.
Mr. Richardson said that Ms Cheryl Andrews and her team had replaced Mrs. Marie Walker, whose company, located in White Plains, New York, had served the island for nine years as Marketing Representative for the North American market.“Let me, at this point, express our sincere thanks for the work that she has done,” he added.
