Greetings all! I’ve been racking my brains all weektrying to decide what topic to discuss and nothing’s been coming, until today when I came across this release announcing Tourism Week.
Good thing too, I had forgotten about the new creative strategy used to promote our tourism product. This year’s Tourism Week should be especially interesting.

As you would have read in the release, tourism accounts for a substantial portion of the country’s economy. There are two ways to get on or off of Antigua by sea or by air. With rising fuel costs, the loss of credit being extented due to the financial crisis being experienced in both the US and the UK, where our heaviest tourist arrivals are from, the future looks dismal for our tourism product and by extension the country’s economy. Thus far, according to the statistics for non-national stay-over arrivals on Antigua we have not yet experienced any significant declines as evidenced here:Non-resident air arrivals

This year, a new initiative was introduced by the Ministry of Toursim, a music festival called Romantic Rhythms. Here is a video from the Tourism Minister, Honourable Harold Lovell, inviting persons to the festival.

The music festival was the first of its kind for the island and from all accounts it was a resounding success. I had the opportunity to be back stage as my husband was on the organizing committee. I stood literally inches, yes I said inches away from Lionel Riche. Not only that, he smiled and said hello to me and of course I was too awestruck to ask for an autograph. At least I didn’t giggle, I had the sense to respond with hi and smile. At least,... I think I said hi. It’s silly I know, but he sang my all time favorite song, even if it was with Diana Ross.

So in my book, Romantic Rhythms deserves an The atmosphere surrounding the concert must have been truly romantic since the festival produced a romantic proposal under the stars. The romantic tone was set by the incredible performances, especially from the two muscial stalwarts of romance, Lionel Riche and Kenny Rogers. Romantic Rhythms had an all star line-up and with any luck, this festival will be the first of many drawing artistes with the appeal of the first year’s line-up. The success of this year’s festival will hopefully result in the becoming a permanent fixture on the country’s This may be tricky as this type of event does not come cheap and in the current global economy…well…you just never know. But I remain hopeful.

One of the local artistes who performed at Romantic Rhythms was Shermaine Jeremy. This daughter of the soil is on her way up, and her web site, is her creative strategy propelling her towards her choosen career goal.

Creativity will definitely need to play a crucial role for the next year or so in the Ministry of Tourism’s advertising/marketing strategies as it looks doubtful that the current global financial crisis will get better any time soon. Therefore, imaginative ways need to be found to promote, the country’s calendar of events like Carnival, Sailing Week and other events.

It will also require a collaborated effort on the part of all the Ministries of Tourism in the Caribbean to promote the region as a mutiple island destination sharing advertising costs which would significantly reduce their individual, which at least for a time will aid in easing the squeeze.

Collaborations are the way of the future. Like it or not, its the key to survival. It’s almost impossible these days to listen to the news, watch the news, open a homepage, without finding out about some merger or another.

Keeping the importance of working together in mind, I’m going to digress a lot from the current topic as I wind up this week’s post. To all of you out there in the blogosphere please visit Stephanie’s blog. She’s currently taking IMC 613 and this week she’s discussing ‘Where does marketing to children cross the line?’ I found it to be very interesting and I’m hoping you will too.

This week I leave you with the up beat song by the 3peat Soca Monarch Queen of Antigua & Barbuda Claudette ‘CP’ Peters.