In the second part of her recent interview with The Anguillian newspaper Ms. Jasmin Garraway, the Tourism Development Consultant, attached to the Ministry of Tourism in Anguilla, spoke about the progress of that aspect of her work on the island.
She had previously spoken to the newspaper about her role in Canada and Trinidad where she publicised Anguilla’s plight following Hurricane Irma and obtained a significant amount of relief supplies for the island. So successful were her missions there that she was repeatedly referred to as “an Ambassador for Anguilla” by Chief Minister, Mr. Victor Banks.
Ms. Garraway, a national of Trinidad, has been living in Anguilla for almost ten years and says she has adopted the island as her second home. “I am a Tourism Development Consultant at the Ministry of Tourism,” she told The Anguillian. “I actually came to establish a unit within the Ministry because it had not been formally established before, so that Public Administration would have job descriptions and so on. We were able to accomplish that.
“The Tourism Master Plan was another major piece of work to get some guidance and framework for how tourism would develop here. That has been done. We are now looking at the implementation of that. Of course all of these difficult and challenging exercises came when the fortunes of Anguilla had changed, and so it fell to me again to try to find resources to implement some of these things.
“One of the priorities was the development of tourist attractions where we can get a spill-over effect from the money spent by visitors in different areas like Island Harbour, Shoal Bay and The Valley. We identified several attractions that were worthy of preservation and had marketability – like the plantation heritage of the island and they were all based on the heritage themes.”
She continued: “I took a lot of time to determine what would be the best items; what would be marketable; what would be competitive; and what would be authentic to Anguilla’s history. Coming out of that research, deliberation and thinking, I recommended that plantation heritage, the way Anguillians used to live, could be displayed in an Interpretation Centre at the Wallblake House; that the maritime heritage of the island, which is very rich, could be displayed in the old clinic in Island Harbour, next to the basketball court; that the salt-mining heritage could be displayed in an area of Road Bay; and that the Amerindian heritage, of which Anguilla is very rich, could be displayed in the Interpretation Centre we sought to develop at Shoal Bay, near the Fountain.
“This is one small part of the implementation of the Tourism Master Plan. The Master Plan covers many, many areas – not only marketing, but planning, infrastructural development and administrative framework, amongst other matters. In order for the Plan to take life, each of these areas needs to be addressed by the policymakers so that they can be given life and the Plan itself would come to life. A Plan of that nature needs everyone on the same page, moving in the same direction, and working towards the same objectives. Once that is achieved you will see the Plan taking life and the results of it.”
Ms. Garraway further stated: “What I recommended to the Ministry was to identify the areas where we will be able to get some economic activity and could manage. We certainly could not manage dealing with the airport as there are so many players, all of whom must be together to make these things happen. So my recommendation is that these heritage themes could be used as the incubator and then handed over to the relevant authorities, NGOs and statutory bodies, who can manage them.
“My recommendation was, and still is, that these themes could add a completely new dimension to the visitor experience; they could also add some economic activity in areas where there isn’t very much from tourism; and they could add to the marketability of the country; the vacation experience of the visitor, as well as to give the youth of the country, who don’t know much of these things, an opportunity to understand that experience and give life to it.
“The mother-load of all of this is Mr. Colville Petty’s Heritage Collection Museum. It has always been the intention, and I hope it will materialise, that Mr. Petty’s Museum, along with the other attractions, would come together as an umbrella group and be used as a visitor passport where all of these places could be visited – once the visitors buy this passport during their stay on the island. Of course, there would also be the day trippers from St. Maarten, and other nearby islands, who would benefit from the experience as well.”
Ms. Garraway was fully convinced that when these projects come to fruition, the objectives she outlined above would change the landscape of the visitor experience and bring about a revival of the island’s heritages particularly among the young people.
She went on: “We have had some damage at Wallblake House which we are trying to address right now, and I am also fundraising for that. We need to be of the same mind on what happens at the Fountain. There are different agencies of Government and Statutory Authorities that have responsibility for some aspect of the Fountain – whether the environment or the cave itself. The objective was really to get a site that could interpret the life of the Amerindians in Anguilla without creating any obstruction or other kind of problems with respect to the entry to the cave, which has been sealed off and is only opened under special circumstances.
“The Amerindian Centre provides for you to go there; see what it looks like in the cave; see actual replicas of the artifacts which have been found; and you can walk the short Trail… A lot has gone into it already and there is not a whole lot left to be done; but I think there is a need for some serious decisions as to where the responsibility would lie for the actual Fountain itself and the Cave; the Interpretation Centre and the Trail.
“There is absolutely no reason why the Interpretation Centre and the Trail cannot operate while all the other plans for the National Park become a reality. I have been able to get the land where the Centre is on; and the land across the street for parking and we have a structure. Some money will have to be put into its completion. I have made significant headway in that regard and that will be announced in due course.
“I am working to get that Centre, the island Harbour Centre and Wallblake House, opened by the next tourism season. With respect to the facility, where we would like to interpret what salt-mining was like, I have had a whole change of vision as to how that can be done. It would be cheaper, in terms of maintenance, but it will still tell the story of the salt-mining history of Anguilla.”
The passionate Tourism Development Consultant added: “This is what we need to do: tell our stories and let the tourism economy boom based on the visitors’ enjoyment of the facilities and the contributions they make. They all should be paying to visit these facilities.”
