Regional cooperation discussed at Saba’s Tourism Conference

Saba’s second Hos­pitality and Tourism Con­ference was an extended event with accredited cus­tomer-service training from June 25-27, followed by conference sessions on July 2 and 3.

The customer service trainings, which focused on elements such as attitudes for service and managing customer expectations, were all well received by stakeholders within the hospitality sector.

During a panel discus­sion, further collaboration between the islands was discussed and it was de­cided that follow-up was necessary to further de­velop possibilities for joint marketing efforts, increas­ing ease of accessibility to the islands, hotel and travel packages and developing local awareness of the tour­ism products of the sister islands St. Maarten, Saba and Statia.

Already, there has been further interest shown in more in-depth training, with the aim of continuing to develop Saba’s tourism sector. The Public Entity and Saba Tourist Bureau stated they will continue to work towards providing such training.

During the conference sessions, topics such as accessibility, inter-island cooperation and collabo­ration, possibilities for be­coming a more sustainable destination and destination recovery after a disaster were discussed.

It is Saba’s Commissioner of Tourism Bruce Zagers’s hope that the Saba Tourism Conference can become an annual event. “An annual tourism conference is a tool that can be utilized to not only keep our stakehold­ers informed of relevant developments, but to also enhance their knowledge and skills. The conference also provides the opportu­nity for our stakeholders to network and strengthen relationships within the lo­cal tourism industry. In recent years, it has become evident that better commu­nication is needed between all tourism partners, and our tourism conference is one way of accomplishing this,” said Zagers.

Speakers at the confer­ence were co-founder of Green Destinations Hugo de Jong, Director of Social Media Strategy at Miles Partnership Theresa Over­by, St. Maarten Director of Tourism May-Lin Chun, Saba Director of Tourism Glenn Holm, St. Eusta­tius Director of Tourism Charles Lindo, Tourism Corporation Bonaire Mar­keting Manager Malinda Hassell, Chief Executive Officer of Windward Is­lands Airways Internation­al Winair Michael Cleaver, principal partner of the BedfordBakerGroup and previous Bahamas Minister of Tourism Vincent Van­derpool-Wallace and Direc­tor of Training Profession­als International Natasha Gittens.

The Daily Herald.