One of the features of tourism promotion inAnguillais the involvement of children from pre-school to high school.
The senior group is the Tourism Club whose rallying theme is “Tourism is we Thing”. The group comprises mainly Sixth Forum students at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School who are currently raising funds for another of their promotional trips to theUnited States. President of the Club, Javiette Richardson, told The Anguillian:“The fund-raising is to help us to attend a conference inMiamicalled ‘Nabhood’.
“It is a conference, for black hotel owners, to which students are invited to gain knowledge about how they can better their tourism sector,” she explained. “It gives us an opportunity to meet investors in hotels and other developers, and we try to sellAnguillato them. We are like the big sister of ‘Hello Tourist’, the group comprising Primary School children – and then there is ‘Smile’, involving Pre-school children.
“As you know,Anguilla’s main industry is tourism, hence our Club’s name ‘Tourism is we Thing’ – and we are the future, so we ought to know more about our industry. We are not just catering to the high-end tourists. We are also trying to find more ways of bringing more visitors toAnguilla.”
Javiette said her group attended the Miami Conference on three occasions so far. “The first time we met some developers from Viceroy,” she recalled. “That was when the hotel was in financial trouble. We talked to them and encouraged them back into the project. We also met other developers. They were all very impressed with how we were able to articulate ourselves, because we were the youngest students there – the others being mostly college students.”
Vice President of “Tourism is we Thing”,Quanisha Richardson, said she was delighted to be a member of the Club as it was doing a good job in marketing Anguilla, so that persons abroad would have a wider knowledge of the island as a tourist destination.
The two Sixth Form students were speaking to The Anguillian last weekend at the Agricultural Department’s grounds, where their Club held a fund-raising cake sale and sporting events for younger children. The group also holds monthly cake sales at J. W. Proctors as part of its fund-raising activities, and accepts donations at the school as well.
The facilitator for “Tourism is we Thing” Club is Karl Woodley, Head of the Hotel Management Department at the Comprehensive School. Although the Club functions on its own, there are times when it works closely with the Anguilla Tourist Board.
