ANGUILLA, B.W.I – July 29, 2014 – As part of an ongoing aggressive campaign to target niche markets such as family and multigenerational travel, the Anguilla Tourist Board (ATB) in conjunction with its North America Sales and Marketing and Public Relations firm, Cheryl Andrews Marketing Communications (CAMC), hosted a family-themed press trip July 21-25. The five-day trip included five writers and editors representing leading print and on-line media outlets across the United States and Canada, accompanied by CAMC representative Jennifer Johnson, and ATB on-island escort, Deputy Director of Tourism, Chantelle Davis.
Press trip participants included Nancy Schretter, founder and managing editor of the award-winning Family Travel Network site; Jennifer Friebely Earle, representing popular family travel site Macaroni Kid; Waheeda Harris, freelance journalist writing for leading Canadian resource Canada.com; Peta Phipps, publisher, Caribbean Living magazine; and Judy Koutsky, freelance writer whose outlets include Parenting, About.com and New York Daily News. The highly interactive and varied itinerary showcased the various facets of Anguilla’s attractions, its culture and its heritage for families and multi-generational groups visiting the island.
During the four-day visit to the island the journalists engaged in a variety of family-friendly activities, including swimming with the dolphins at Dolphin Discovery; lunch at Sandy Island; horseback riding with Seaside Stables along Maundays Bay Beach to Cove Beach; visits to the Anguilla Tennis Academy, the Anguilla Sailing School and Sea Pro Watersports; a glass bottom boat tour with Junior’s Glass-Bottom Boat services, organized by local DMC, Island Destinations; in-room massages at Ce Blue Villas and Beach Resort; and a cultural presentation by the Mayoumba Folkloric Dinner Theatre at Firefly Restaurant at Anacaona Boutique Hotel.
The activities were supplemented with a number of accommodation site visits highlighting the island’s children-friendly Kids’ Club programs. Journalists also experienced the island’s myriad culinary options, including a welcome reception at Ultimacy Villa, and meals at Da’Vida’s Restaurant, Tokyo Bay at CuisinArt, Bamboo Bar & Grill at Viceroy and Blue Bar at Ce Blue. The group was hosted at Paradise Cove Resort (July 21-23) and Ce Blue Beach Resort & Villas (July 23-25).
In addition to the group press trip, the ATB and CAMC have worked to secure individual media visits throughout this summer for writers on assignment for key print and online publications, thereby helping to solidify Anguilla’s position as a destination for discerning travelers. The group press trip falls on the heels of recent media visits by noted journalists Donna Heiderstadt and David Swanson. Heiderstadt was on assignment for private jet lifestyle magazine Elite Traveler, while Swanson visited to gather the latest island news and developments for a piece for a nationally distributed Caribbean feature. These individual visits continue to strengthen Anguilla’s presence in the global marketplace while targeting a variety of consumers.
“With more than 1.4 billion media impressions in the first half of 2014, we have seen impressive coverage of destination Anguilla,” commented Candis Niles, Director of Tourism for the Anguilla Tourist Board. “Initiatives such as the family travel press trip allow us to target niche markets, and the individual media visits further broaden Anguilla’s reach to more consumers. By creating these avenues to tell Anguilla’s stories to a wider cross-section of consumers, whom we can now engage through social media as well as through traditional media channels, we are in turn creating more opportunities to entice them to come and experience the Caribbean’s quintessential vacation: Tranquility Wrapped in Blue.”
Immediate coverage from the family travel press trip has already been generated over social media, reaching more than 22,000 users on Twitter and Instagram through the postings of the journalists themselves while on island, and garnering a total reach of more than 230,000. Additional coverage will follow in the coming months.
– Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper.)
