Efforts Underway in the US to Attract the Caribbean Visitor
Efforts Underway in the US to Attract the Caribbean Visitor
(The Antigua Observer)
The US tourism team has set its sights on the Caribbean tourist and is working on getting our regional neighbors to try the Antigua & Barbuda’s tourism product.
Director of Tourism in the United States Derede Samuel Whitlock said her team’s business plan for 2011 included devising a strategy to lure them, particularly around the time of Antigua & Barbuda’s Independence pearl celebration.
“We’d come up with a strategy about how do we link pearls meaning all of the pearls … that bring the various Caribbean people (together) and also this year is the International year of people of African descent, so there was an overall focus this year on doing more events where could intercept Caribbean people,” Samuel Whitlock said.
“(We’re also targeting) African Americans, who might be more curious about the Caribbean and also people from African countries who live in the US and they’re not an easy group to reach because we’re finding more and more they’re so integrated into mainstream America that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to really tease out who’s from the Caribbean and what have you,” she added.
Meantime, the director of tourism for the US revealed that the unveiling of a special exhibit at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, centered on stories of Antiguan immigrants, is to coincide with the country’s Independence.
She said the US-based Antigua & Barbuda Progressive Society and Antigua House have been making documents available to The Schomburg for this project.
“I think that creates a really good basis or a really good product for us to showcase to put Antigua & Barbuda history under the microscope from the perspective of immigrants who migrated to Harlem, were part of the Antigua Progressive Society and then how they were able to come together and develop an economic base not only to help each other out but to also send monies back home to provide a lot of assistance …” Samuel Whitlock said. “So we’re hoping to do an event to coincide with that and also to use that as a tool, as an exhibit which we can direct people to, to learn about our culture.”
