Anguilla currently has no tourists given the closure of its borders and the industry, due to the coronavirus. But the still busy Anguilla Tourist Board is keeping the waiting visitors in touch with the island.
Mr. Jameel Rochester, Manager of Destination Experience with the Tourist Board, explained to The Anguillian newspaper what is being done and throughout what means. “We are focusing on our social media platforms,” he said. “It is important that around this time that we continue to stay on top the minds of our travellers who still desire to come to our destination of choice.
“Right now, given the covid-19 pandemic, we aim at doing a strong social media campaign that will promote on our social media page things that are informational, inspirational and educational. So if you look on our Facebook destination page you will see things like interactive puzzles, games and other different things, including videos that show simplicity and less crowding of the destination. Hopefully, we are emotionally appealing to our travellers so that when we reopen as a destination, they will come to enjoy what we have to offer.
“Given the pandemic, we know that this is something that is not only impacting Anguilla but the world at large. So internally we are doing a lot of things that can get us back up to speed for when we are ready to reopen. We are doing a lot of training programmes. We are working with Webinars and other agencies like CHTA and CTO. We are looking on Webinars at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank with regards to tourism and how we are able to look at sustainable recovery after the covid-19 pandemic. We are also equipping our people to ensure that we have the capacity to move our destination forward when we are back up and running. It is a lot of training that we are doing in such areas as marketing, destination experience and corporate affairs, hoping that sooner or later we will get to a state of normalcy. We will then be able to promote travel and tourism in Anguilla and hopefully capture the title number one destination in the Caribbean for a fourth consecutive year.”
The enthusiastic Anguilla Destination Experience Manager was asked what response the Tourist Board was getting on its social media platforms. “So far, we have been receiving some lovely responses,” he replied. “Our numbers are going up with more people subscribing to the Anguilla page. It is important for us not only to educate our people, but also to create that fantasy and to continue to have our visitors enjoy Anguilla and keep our destination at the top of their minds. That is important because, with so many other destinations out of commission, when the time comes for destinations to be back open and running, it will be basically survival for the fittest and who can have the tourism products to attract more people.”
Mr. Rochester added: “We want to make sure that our Anguilla followers come back to us. We have been covid-19 free for a very long time and this gave us very good publicity as a destination. We have been flagged on numerous Facebook pages and have received accolades for what we have done to protect our island from the covid-19 pandemic and how we handled it. This is not only from a Government perspective, but also from the perspective of the Anguilla Tourist Board and the rest of the private sector.
“As I indicated, we are hoping to continue to create that fantasy, love and passion for Anguilla as a destination in order to encourage our visitors to come back when the pandemic is over.”
