Mr Claudio Boncamper
The Anguilla Tourist Board, the St Maarten-based WINAIR and the airline’s publicity personnel, met with hoteliers and other operators of accommodation facilities at Paradise Cove on Wednesday, January 8.
The meeting, which also brought together members of Anguilla’s Marketing Alliance, the Hotel and Tourism Association and officials in the Ministry of Tourism, was to discuss the island’s marketing strategy and programme for 2014 and beyond. It came against the backdrop of the current resumption of the scheduled WINAIR service between St Maarten and Anguilla and the forthcoming flights linking Anguilla to San Juan, Puerto Rico, commencing February 15.
Anguilla’s Director of Tourism, Mrs Candis Niles, who chaired the proceedings, said in part. “Anguilla is on the verge of a very momentous happening in our tourism industry, as we look forward with eager anticipation and excitement to the introduction of the WINAIR service between Anguilla and San Juan (applause). For the first time, in more than three years, we are having a sizeable shot of service available to us coming out of one of our key frontline markets. We are really looking forward to the advent of that service and to be able to share this message with the potential visitors in our various marketplaces.
“The wonderful thing about this is that we are not only talking about Puerto Rico, where the service will originate. We are also talking about possible connectivity with all of our major source markets…This is really huge for Anguilla, at this stage in our tourism development, and we want to say welcome to our friends and partners from WINAIR.”
Mrs Niles said the Tourist Board was now returning to the former marketing brand for Anguilla, “Tranqullity Wrapped in Blue”, with the appointment of the Britto Agency to brand the island. The opportunity was taken to show a slide presentation of the main aspects of the rebranding of Anguilla.
Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism, Mr Haydn Hughes, said he was pleased with the agreement between the Anguilla Government and WINAIR following talks which spanned three or four years. He was delighted with the forthcoming service linking Anguilla with Puerto Rico, noting that the flights between the two destinations would provide more than the nine seats. “While we appreciate our nine-seat airlines, we are indeed happy to have WINAIR on board [with some 48 passenger seats on the ATR-42]. This will open many doors for Anguilla,” he went on. He noted that with WINAIR also flying to the Dominican Republic, which hosts the most tourist arrivals in the Caribbean, there should be an increase in the number of visitors from there to Anguilla.
“A sustainable future for Anguilla can only be achieved when we increase our tourism arrivals,” the Parliamentary Secretary stressed. “It is therefore important that WINAIR is in Anguilla today…and I wish you the very best. I also want you to make money because a prosperous WINAIR is a prosperous Anguilla.”
Ms May-Ling Chun, WINAIR’s representative for Strategic Marketing and Public Relations, led the airline’s team at the discussions. Among those accompanying her was Mr Claudio Boncamper, Director of Sales and Marketing and Customer Service. Ms Chun gave detailed information regarding the operations of WINAIR in the Caribbean and its connecting flight agreements with fourteen international airlines.
She was pleased that the WINAIR service linking St Maarten, Anguilla and Puerto Rico, dubbed “San Juan here we come”, will be operating six days a week except on Fridays. Mr Boncamper confirmed that the introductory cost of the round-trip flights, up to a period, would be US299.00 plus taxes, amounting to about US$383.00 – an announcement which resulted in applause among those attending the meeting.
Another speaker was Ms Racquel Echandi who is promoting Anguilla in the Latin American market and who has served for many years as Anguilla’s representative in Puerto Rico. She said she had translated the island’s promotional slogans from English into Spanish and was making much progress in her marketing efforts. She stated that Copa Airlines had three daily flights into San Juan from Panama thus providing opportunities for visitors from that Latin American country to visit Anguilla with WINAIR as their carrier.
Following the opening statements, the stakeholders examined the various aspects of the Anguilla Tourist Board-WINAIR marketing programme, and Anguilla’s own marketplace promotion strategies for 2014 and beyond.
Meanwhile, Mrs Niles, Anguilla’s Director of Tourism, has given an outline of the island’s marketing activities for the first quarter of this year as follows: “We are planning to participate in a number of trade events,” she said. “These include Marketplace which begins over the weekend from January 12-14. We will also be participating in the New York Times Travel Show, the Boston Globe Travel Show, and the Travel Adventure Show of the Washington [Post] edition. We will also be participating in two other events alongside two of our popular tour operators: Travel Impressions and Lako.”
