There is a fever-pitched atmosphere at the restructured Anguilla Tourist Board to more aggressively market the island as a destination of choice. Further, plans are in place for the Board to become the central figure of the industry while still working in conjunction with its five marketing representatives abroad.
In order to achieve this new drive and goal, four young, energetic and well-qualified executive officers have been hired as part of the restructuring programme. Plans are also in hand to employ additional leading personnel later on to further strengthen the resolve of the Board to place Anguilla’s tourism at the heightened level it should be.
These, and other objectives, were outlined to The Anguillian this week in part one of a two-part interview with Mrs. Shellya Rogers-Webster, Manager of Corporate Affairs at the Anguilla Tourist Board. She was appointed on July 1, 2017 to roll out the restructuring plan. Mrs. Rogers-Webster is predominantly responsible for leading and managing the Anguilla Tourist Board’s internal and external relationships and communications, including human resources, public relations, government relations, public policy, corporate restructuring and determining employee attitudes in the Anguilla Tourist Board. She also has responsibility for local public relations and community-based work in terms of promoting tourism on the island.
It was in this wide-ranging capacity that Mrs. Rogers-Webster spoke to The Anguillian. “ The decision taken by the Anguilla Tourist Board’s Directors to restructure the organisation was as a result of the lack of capacity in a number of key areas,” she explained. “The Board decided that, in order to adequately serve the Anguillian public and to ensure that they marketed the destination well, the organisation needed to internally restructure and attract personnel with new ideas and specific skill sets.”
Mrs. Rogers-Webster, a noted public speaker and former Miss Anguilla, with a background in Public Management and policy development, continued: “It was a bold move by the 2015 appointed Board of Directors because when you are restructuring an entire organisation existing staff will naturally be uneasy. It means that people will be put into new roles and will be challenged differently. Of course, Anguillians do not always respond well to change but, as I said, it was a bold move, and I think it was a good decision that the Board of Directors made at the time.
“As a result of that, we now have three separate and distinct divisions at the Anguilla Tourist Board. We have the Corporate Affairs Division of which I am the Manager; a Destination Experience Division and Jameel Rochester is the Assistant Manager. We also have a Marketing Division and Colwayne Pickering is the Marketing Officer. Over time we will be filling the top positions in those two divisions – there will be a Chief Marketing Officer and a Manager of Destination Experience.
“In addition to making the decision to restructure and putting the necessary tools in place, the Board also commissioned the development of the ATB’s first ever Business and Marketing Plan. The plan outlines the mandate of the divisions and serves as the team’s road map. Overall, the Anguilla Tourist Board is responsible for marketing the destination and managing the guest’s “Anguilla Experience”. With this responsibility in mind all of our divisions are forging ahead to ensure that we achieve those objectives. In addition to doing so, we have started to rebuild some of the broken relationships that we may have had with stakeholders.
“For a very long time, there was a lack of responsiveness from the Anguilla Tourist Board and it was not necessarily always the fault of the existing Board or the operations staff. I think it is very important that we have a strong Board complement but also a strong operations staff. We are actively building our internal capacity. We are growing; having staff development sessions; going out more and meeting with persons in the industry; we are organising meet and greet events just for people to get to know us. Yes, we may be well-known in Anguilla, but individually we come from very different backgrounds.
“I come, of course, directly from the public service where I have worked over the years – first in Education; then Arts and Culture, and now Tourism, so my background is definitely public sector-based. That means that I have to be actively out in the private sector, getting persons to know me personally and professionally. Jameel Rochester comes from the private sector – specifically in the hospitality industry, having worked at National Bank of Anguilla, First Caribbean Bank, Zemi Beach, Viceroy and Four Seasons Resort. Colwayne Pickering is from a telecommunications background at Digicel, and Gershwin Lake [the Accountant], would have had quite a bit of experience in the private sector, but formerly worked in a Statutory Body [the Water Corporation of Anguilla]. We have very different backgrounds, but I think what we have in common is a shared vision in terms of our ambition and desire to see Tourism and Anguilla thrive. We are very driven; we know where we want to go personally and professionally and that fuels the work we do at the Anguilla Tourist Board.
“It is a lot of hard work. It is definitely a change of pace for all of us – whether we were in the private sector or the public sector. At the Anguilla Tourist Board it is very different. From day to day, what you are expected to do changes, and you have to be flexible enough to make adjustments. On any given day plans change rapidly. I’ve had my day fully planned out, only to find out that I have to make an emergency trip to St. Maarten for a quick meeting. It definitely means that we have to be very flexible and adaptable to the current situation; but I think we are in a very good place in terms of really ensuring that the Anguilla Tourist Board becomes a very responsive, profit-driven centre for tourism on the island.”
Asked to expand on how she sees the Anguilla Tourism developing, later on, to achieve some of the objectives she outlined, Mrs. Webster replied:
“I definitely see the Anguilla Tourist Board, within the next two to three years, being the central figure of tourism in Anguilla. I think that has changed over the years but I definitely see us reverting to the central figure for a number of reasons. One, as the agency responsible for marketing, we are going to be driving marketing from our Head Office. In the past, because we did not have a strong Head Office, it meant that we could not adequately advise the representatives in our five markets [Latin America, the United States, Germany, Italy and the UK]. Now that we have been developing our on-island strength, the Head Office is strong enough to lead the charge on the organisation’s marketing strategy. This will ensure that the Anguilla Tourist Board brings an invaluable contribution to the tourism industry in Anguilla.
“From a destination perspective, we are determined to enhance and manage the experience that our guests receive. As a destination we have to ensure that the on-island experience matches what we are marketing to the world. ”
Mrs. Rogers-Webster went on: “Experiences start from the moment persons decide to come to the island – whether that is the viewing of the website; the booking of a ticket; getting to a particular hub airport such as San Juan, PR or St. Maarten; arriving at our terminals; interacting with our border personnel etc. All of that is part of the experience of coming to Anguilla. What our Destination Experience Division is trying to do is to ensure that it identifies the major touch points and then work with those touch points to enhance the experience.
“That then means that we are going to be actively out training personnel at Immigration and Customs at our ports, entry. It can no longer be business as usual. We have to get them to understand that if the Tourism Industry does not do well, their salaries cannot be paid. We really need to start to ensure that we connect the dots but, in order to do that, the Anguilla Tourist Board has to remain strong. It has to be forceful, but it must also have the capacity and willingness to build sound relationships with our public sector partners. Equipped with our business and marketing plan, a strong operations team and a Board of Directors with a genuine interest in the industry, the Anguilla Tourist Board is committed to sharing its vision and mandate with the people of Anguilla.”
Next Week, Part 2: More Money for Marketing, Access etc.
