Antigua, West Indies, A Worldly Locals Perspective

Antigua & Barbuda “Creating a World Class Visitor Experience” HA!

Christian Lafaurie — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:04:03 GMT

The Blog entry to Follow was actually written before the start of Antigua Tourism Week, I held off publication, as I wanted to see if negotiation would solve the problem, as of December. 13, 2007, the saga continues!!!

In Antigua, National Tourism Week 2007 will be celebrated from November 25th. to November 30th.

It would seem almost laughable but it is actually tragic, that just before the National Celebration of Tourism here in Antigua, one of the major contributors to Antigua's tourism sector a Mr Robert Barrett, controlling Galley Bay, St James's Club and now the Verandah Resort, is actively disrupting the comfort and "The Visitor Experience" for all who reside or visit the Long Bay, Indian Town Creek and Devil's Bridge area.

How? you ask, well, since he has opened his new supposedly eco-friendly resort Verandah, his resort Verandah, has scheduled early morning, 4:00AM massive mosquito fogging, which engulfs the whole Bay Area, with smelly chemicals and offending noise. On top of that he has totally disregarded the numerous requests of the people in the Indian Town Creek area to reschedule the fogging for early evening; by refusing to reschedule the fogging to take place at the more reasonable time of early evening. We know this, as the fogging is still being carried out, as recently as of today at 5:00AM.

It has been pointed out to Mr. Barrett and his resort manager Mr. Alex deBrito, via direct email, on numerous occasions, that the early morning fogging disrupts the sleep of all who live and visit the Indian Town Creek area. He has been asked directly by the Long Bay Hotel and others that if mosquito fogging is a necessary evil, then said fogging should be scheduled for the early evening and not at 4:00 or 5:00AM in the mornings when all are still in their beds. The reason an early evening fogging is more acceptable to all, is that if the fogging was done at dusk, then all in the area would be able to enjoy a good nights rest, without the noise and chemical contamination assaulting people while they are trying to enjoy the cool tropical breezes and a good , full nights sleep. For many who live and reside in the area natural is the order of the day, meaning open windows, to let in the cool night air, are the norm and a lack of air conditioning prevails. It also is a fact that since most of the residents in the area, including the guest accommodations, do not have air conditioning, the noise and chemicals of all 4:00AM fogging's travel directly through the homes and guest rooms. It should be noted here, that Mr. Barrett's lack of action is somewhat incomprehensible as, his own guests have complained about the early morning fogging, see TripAdvisor.com.

We have on several occasions appealed to Mr. Barrett's sense of fair play and decency, see excerpt below; the continued unabated fogging proves to us, that we will have to appeal to our Government and others to step in and ensure all who live, visit or work in the area are treated with respect. It seems that Mr. Barrett feels that his new eco-friendly (ha!) resort has Carte' Blanche to do whatever without any regard to the local environment, the comfort of the local residents or the "WORLD CLASS VISITOR EXPERIENCE" offered to the visitors of the area and Antigua.

Is this the face of "World Class Tourism" Mr. Barrett wants to present to the world?

" Before I go too far with my complaining, arguing and begging, I would like to ask you to use your better judgment and influence, coupled with plain decency to have the 4:00AM mosquito fogging at your Veranda resort rescheduled or ideally stopped all together. Quite honestly I cannot understand why this request would fall upon deaf ears and be ignored, unless your goal is to try and destroy my guests vacation experience and by extension the success of my little business. My little resort is absolutely of no threat to your huge hospitality machine, in fact the number of guests you cater to in a week, would fill my little hotel to the brim for a full year, so I find it hard to believe you would intentionally, negatively affect the comfort of my guests and staff, purely for monetary gain. If your future actions or inaction show that you choose not to work and act like a good neighbor I can only surmise that somehow you feel that little Long Bay Hotel, poses some kind of financial threat to your empire, which honestly, I find very difficult to believe. The only other thought that pops into my head is that, you would be choosing, to disrupt my guest’s and Pineapple Beaches guest’s vacation experience; the local area home owners quality of life and my staff’s comfort, is ; because you can. "

Pre-Verandah Post-Verandah!!!

The Invasion of the Butterflies Why chose a small local Resort, Inn Or Hotel

Christian Lafaurie — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:22:06 GMT

Today it's a slow day at Long Bay In Antigua, it's Sunday so one would expect this but it's also a particularly beautiful day with the sun shining, as it tends to do, puffy soft cottony clouds and the usual quiet breeze, which traveled across the Atlantic and is now puffing down our bay to cool us. There are, at present, a multitude of soft yellow butterflies, flitting about all over the area, which give the whole day a Never Never Land quality that is so special when experienced first hand. Honestly I have traveled far, to many different countries and places but never in all my travels, have I experienced days like the special days that are natural here in the Caribbean and especially here at Long Bay.

The main reason for my extra appreciation of today is that while I was relaxing in an easy chair in my living room, admiring the the wonderful view of the bay, a single butterfly choose to enter the room through the open french doors and it spent 90 seconds with me, imagine 90 seconds, time it with a second hand it is quit a long time. This butterfly was just floating around in front of me, at eye level, about three feet away, magic actually. While I was watching this butterfly I actually spoke to it, assigning it human like awareness, and yes it seemed to react to my speech for as I told it, "it should continue on its mindless way", it suddenly but slowly made it way out the open french doors off to do what butterflies do.

After it left I was just contemplating the experience when upon me came a wave of calm. My thoughts were serine and I suddenly felt as though, in spite of my insignificance, I was a part of the world. Obviously I wanted to share the experience so I am posting my words to the net. For those of you who have never been to a small hotel in the Caribbean but have mostly chosen the safe all-inclusive route, I wanted to offer you my thoughts on what you might expect to experience if you decided to venture outside your normal comfort zone. Choosing a small local vacation Hotel, Inn or Resort rather then the traditional manufactured Caribbean resort can result in a far better experience for you the traveler. Not only will you have an opportunity to see what our Caribbean is like but you can also get away from what you know and then, truly have some special stories to remember and share with friends once you return to the "REAL WORLD"!

If you do decide my words have inspired you to seek and patronize one of the Caribbean's small properties for your next getaway I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised. Most of the small intimate Resorts, Inns and Hotels in the islands are run by owners who are there on site, to ensure your vacation is a success. These small places may not have the infrastructure that the All-inclusive's have but what they lack in fixtures and fittings they make up for, 10 time over, in style a local character.

I strongly suggest if you would like to experience a similar feeling to the one I had, this day, on your next Caribbean holiday or vacation choose a small locally owned Inn, Resort or Hotel.

a' Bientot.
Chris, Host/owner Long Bay, Antigua.

For more info on Antigua's small locally owed properties visit www.antigua-vip.com.

It's All about Nature.

Christian Lafaurie — Thu, 18 May 2006 07:43:00 GMT

This morning while I was enjoying the arrival of a new day here in paradise I was reminded by a small lizard why I enjoy living here.

As many loyal friends know, those early risers anyway, I greet each new day by enjoying a cup of coffee on my back porch which overlooks the gardens here at Long Bay. Over the last few mornings I have noticed a new baby lizard weighing perhaps an ounce who seemed to be totally absorbed by my big toe. The reason I noticed the lizard was that on the first morning I felt a tiny weight on my foot, when I looked down I saw the tiny lizard running away. Upon reflection I thought the lizard was interested in my big toe, I tend to tap it on the floor, while I am sitting. Anyway I wasn't too bothered as he didn't hurt me and I thought he would tire of the toe chasing game eventually.

Well this morning I have figured out why this tiny new lizard is so interested in my feet. You see it wasn't my big toe he was interested in but the whole area around my toes in general. Why is this? well it seems that small gnats, we do have a few, like to buzz around the end of my toes. Mr lizard had seen this on previous days and figured he could get breakfast every day if he watched the end of my toes. Well I tell you it was amazing to watch this guy feed, he would sit there patiently looking at the end of my feet and then BAM! as quick as an eye blink, he would catch a gnat. I must admit it was a wonder to watch and it didn't hurt, that he was culling the gnat population, we all can use less gnats.

These small constant interactions with nature are a joy to behold and rarely enjoyed in the first world. I don't know but in the real world with our schedules, TV news, rush hour traffic and the rest we seem not to notice the world around us. Here however by design we constantly are presented with the nature around us and almost forced to realize that we humans are just one small part of the overall puzzle.

Thank you Mr. Lizard.

Arrogant Antiguan's

Christian Lafaurie — Mon, 15 May 2006 21:58:28 GMT

A few days ago I was at the sign makers store and had a disquieting conversation with a local Taxi Driver who plies his trade at V.C. Bird International Airport. My conversation with this taxi driver highlights the lack of tourism support and general apathy towards tourism in general in Antigua, by our general public.

To understand my conversation fully I need to fill the non-local in on some facts. At our airport every Saturday there is a mass shortage of Taxis to take our valued tourists to their respective Hotels & Resorts. This situation occurs as many of the Taxi drivers who are granted sole access to arriving passengers in Antigua are Seventh Day Adventists, there is of course, nothing wrong with practicing ones religion. Seventh Day adventists do not work for religious reasons, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, this creates a shortage of taxis at the airport from Friday evening until Saturday evening. Because the privileged Airport Taxi association does not want to dilute the total number of taxis at the airport it refuses to add more Taxis for the flight arrivals for Friday night and all Saturday. What the Taxi association prefers, is to require our arriving tourists to jam into taxis three or four couples together, charging I might add, a full taxi fare, for each couple.

My discussion with the local airport taxi person revolved around the fact that I thought it unprofessional for our taxi drivers to expect our arriving tourists, to share a taxi ride, while still paying the fare for a private taxi. My argument was and is, our arriving guests expect a taxi at their service, not a bus ride. To add insult to injury we then ask our arriving guests to pay, full fare, as if they enjoyed a comfortable private taxi ride. I was adamantly trying to explain to him the thoughts, that must go through our arriving passengers minds, as they are shuffled into a bus, after requesting a taxi. I tried to explain this was not customary behavior, throughout the world, his retort was that we were not the rest of the world we were Antigua, where things are done our way not the worlds way. I pointed out that this may be; but if our arriving tourists expect a certain level of service and then they receive another experience altogether, they are then understandably disappointed. Finally to ask the tourist to pay full fare, a rip off in the minds off the traveler, which adds insult, disbelief and anger to the whole situation, is "JUST WRONG"

The more I argued the case about acceptable standards and the expectations of the traveler, even going so far to suggest we call the service a bus service rather then Taxi service, to avoid the misconception, the more he argued that tourists have been coming to our shores for years and no matter what we do they will continue to come. He even mentioned that he had never heard of any complaints. I said that tourists on holiday, are not here to argue with a taxi driver, they are here to enjoy a relaxing trouble experience, they way they complain is by choosing to visit a different island on their next trip to the Caribbean. It is this kind of attitude, which is somewhat pervasive throughout our Island, that has the potential to kill our main source of income, not only for the taxi driver but for all of us.

Just to be fare to ourselves, I think our problem is not malice but ignorance. To give you an example several years ago I was fortunate enough to hear a Mr. Vanderpool from the Bahamas speak in Antigua about the Bahama's tourism experience. During his speech he mentioned that one thing their islands did to improve the overall tourist product was to educate the population, to the importance of Tourism, on their nations economy. One of the stories he tells to highlight, the education problem and process, was that their Island's advertising slogan was sending the wrong message to the general population. You may remember the slogan from years ago "It's Better In the Bahama's" well when the local population was surveyed they found that the locals thought, because they were told to think, if " It's Better In the Bahama's" why should I, a local, make an effort ? it is already "Better In the Bahamas" . One of the first things the Bahama Tourist authority did was change their line to "The Bahamas it just Keeps Getting better" to signify that constant work is needed to provide a superior vacation experience. After the new ad campaign was implemented, along with other efforts of course, the Bahamas saw a marked change in the attitudes of the local population and of course an increase in tourist satisfaction with the holiday experience.

It is this kind of education that we here in Antigua need to implement. No matter what one feels, think or believes, Tourism is Antigua's only engine of growth, without the engine, the car don't run. Wake Up Antigua!

The Start.

Christian Lafaurie — Mon, 15 May 2006 22:00:02 GMT

Hello,
Let me introduce myself, I'm Chris, I've lived in Antigua since 1963, when my parents me tagging along, first moved here. Lately I've been seeing a lot of blogs and I thought it might be interesting to share my personal thoughts on the life we all live here in Antigua.

I must write as of today, I feel this blog will be mostly about the changes that need to be made on Antigua, by the people of Antigua, if they want to join the rest of the world in 21st century. Please don't misunderstand me I like the fact that, as a place to live, Antigua is about 20 years behind the rest of the world, that fact alone is most certainly a good thing. However there are times when I think we as a nation should start to embrace those attitudes and manners that make life, and human interaction, in general easier. There are of course specific examples but I will highlight those in a later entry.

Let me assure you that the comments you will read in future, are my thoughts alone, which may or may not be shared by others. My motives are for information purposes only and for me to have a medium to express my personal feelings which oft times come about due to frustrating situations encountered here on Antigua. Often after these situations occur one thinks WHY still, after 40 years, do we still do, such and such, the sane way WHY??? If you agree or disagree with any of my comments please let me know, my blog email address is cjlanu55@yhoo.com.

I will of course attempt to share the good as well as the frustrating, we all know though that the frustrating is what motivates us to take action, if life is great "Leave it Alone"