Travel Writers and Tour Operators Very Impressed with Montserrat

Increased tourism bodes well for Montserrat.

The following is a press release from the Montserrat Tourist Bureau:

A very positive sign for the future growth of Montserrat’s tourism sector is the news that an additional three (3) major UK/Irish tour operators will be including the island to their upcoming programmes. This is as result of a visit to Montserrat by one of the tour operators in June and meetings between Montserrat Tourist Board (MTB) officials and the other two, which took place at World Travel Market in London in November 2005. The three (3) operators that will be adding the island to their programmes are QuestBeyond, Jetlife and Virgin Holidays. This comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that DiveQuest (sister company of QuestBeyond) will be including Montserrat dive packages in its 2007 programme, following a visit by its Managing Director in early July.

The inclusion of Montserrat in QuestBeyond’s (www.questbeyond.com) upcoming programme is as a result of a visit by John Ironside to the island from June 19-23. This Irish Tour Operator is an innovative holiday company offering tailor-made holidays to families, individuals, couples and groups into specially selected locations around the world, many of them off the beaten track. They currently feature Dominica, Tobago. Antigua and a couple more Caribbean Islands and focus mainly on eco-tourism and adventure trips. The inclusion of Montserrat in their programme will be big boost for its hiking, bird watching, volcano adventure and other eco-tourism products.

The other major tour operator that will be adding Montserrat to their programme is Jetlife (www.jetlife.co.uk). Montserrat, and initially only the Vue Pointe Hotel, will be included in Jetlife’s new Caribworld brochure, due out in September. Jetlife is an independent tour operator offering tailor-made holidays to America, Asia and the Caribbean. It offers a comprehensive choice of scheduled airlines giving the flexibility of daily departures to each destination together with a superb selection of accommodation and sightseeing options. Jetlife is part of the award winning Argo Holidays Group in the UK.

Virgin Holidays (www.virginholidays.co.uk) will also be including Montserrat in their upcoming tour package programme, as a day trip add-on to an Antiguan holiday. At present due to the volcano situation they are a bit cautious about adding Montserrat fully into the programme as a full stopover vacation. However the product manager has indicated that while Montserrat will only be promoted as a day trip destination initially, the intention is to add it as an overnight destination in their programme next year. Owned by Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Holidays is a brand of the Virgin Group, a large network of more than 200 different companies, offering a variety of services ranging from air travel to mobile phones.

“The UK market is currently our main source of visitors, accounting for over 30% of tourist arrivals and the inclusion of Montserrat in these three (3) UK tour operator programme is thus very good news for us,” comments the MTBs Marketing Manager Ishwar Persad. “With World Cup cricket around the corner, the continued very good air service into Antigua from the UK and the ongoing efforts of our UK public relations firm, we are well positioned to see a significant increase in UK visitor arrivals.”