‘Media has vital role to play in Tourism’

Members of the media participated in a one-day workshop on Monday, June 2nd, emphasizing the close link between media and the Tourism Industry.{{more}}

According to Director of Tourism Vida Bernard, the Ministry of Tourism is duty-bound to educate and inform those who play a role in Tourism on tourism matters.

Workshop facilitators Francelia Marksman and Vera-Ann Brereton spent the best part of the day imparting relevant tourism-related information to the participants, in the hope that it would pique their interest and prompt them to do more research into the industry. Marksman highlighted just how fragile our Tourism Industry is because it only takes one incident to negatively affect visitor arrivals to St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Furthermore, she stated that the media is “very influential” in the dissemination of information and needs to be mindful of the manner in which they cover local events and issues. Whilst making it clear that she was not telling the media how to do their job, she pressed upon them to remember that in this age of technology, everything that is reported makes its way to an international audience by way of the Internet. The aim is to impress our worldwide audience with our tourism product and not discourage them from visiting, she related.

Vera-Ann Brereton believes that as a people, Vincentians have a problem with authority and flagrantly disregard rules and regulations set in place to keep society civil. This, she said, is compounded by the fact that such persons often go without being penalised. She further explained that the process of introducing and upholding rules and regulations is something the media can play a critical role in.

Marksman also congratulated the media for doing a good job in making the public aware of tourism issues that affect them and further appealed that they continue and improve their methods of assisting the Ministry of Tourism in its campaign. (JSV)