St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be featured on Sunday, January 10, 2010, on ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA) “Weekend Window’ segment. The GMA Weekend programme which airs at 7 a.m. ET will feature a 2 1/2 minute segment on the Grenadines, following a production shoot by a two-member crew from one of America’s major television networks.{{more}}

The crew visited St. Vincent and the Grenadines during the period December 16 -19, 2009, as part of this country’s marketing initiatives. Arrangements for the production and airing of two 2 1/2 minute features on the destination were spearheaded by this country’s Marketing and Public Relations Agency in North America, Spring O’Brien & Co. Inc., in collaboration with SVG’s New York Tourist Office and the Head Office in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The visit also received support from several local tourism stakeholders. The dates for the airing of the second segment have not yet been received.

Spring O’Brien & Co. Inc has also secured an agreement with PBS television to air a 25 minute feature on St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The feature will be aired on the network’s ‘Travelscope’ travel show that airs on 864 PBS stations in 175 markets in the U.S. or 84 percent of all U.S. markets. The crew of four (host, producer, cameraman and sound) will arrive in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Sunday, January 10, 2010, for one week to work on the production of the feature; the team will leave the island on January 18, 2010.

Efforts to promote the destination in the European market are also on going; a group of four media personnel from Germany will be in St. Vincent and the Grenadines from January 11- 18, 2010, on a familiarization trip. This Public Relations venture is as a result of work done by bgb Communications – this country’s UK/Europe marketing and Public Relations Agency and Global Communication Experts, a German-based company.

While in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the group will visit various sites, attractions and properties to gather information and a first hand experience of the destination’s product offerings. It is expected that the destination will be featured in the magazines and newspapers that they represent on their return to Germany. The journalists write for ‘Welt am Sonntag’, a weekly paper with more than two million readers, ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung’, another weekly paper with one million readers, and ‘Travel One’, a travel trade magazine. The fourth journalist is an independent writer and photographer.

The St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority is coordinating these visits with assistance from local tourism stakeholders.