ONE-ON-ONE WITH MINISTER MAGINLEY Friday 7th September 2012
Antigua and Barbuda's Minister of Tourism, John Maginley recently chatted with Travel Agent and gave them the inside scoop on everything from the revamping of our destination website to our ongoing commitment to agents.
TV Spots, New Flights Strengthen Markets
 As far as flight news goes, Maginley says West Jet just started two flights a week out of the Toronto area and “that’s really exciting for us because we continue to grow the Canadian market.”
The U.S market, however, continues to be Antigua’s strongest. In fact, arrivals from the U.S. increased 14 percent from January to September, compared to the same period in 2011. Why the big spike?
Maginley attributes it to the small, yet extremely effective, TV ads Antigua has been doing on ABC throughout 2012. Antigua introduced promotions to the destination on ABC in both Miami and the New Jersey/ New York area. Maginley also says Antigua has conducted some positive TV spots in Hartford.
“We really focused on TV spots in only the places where we have adequate airlift,” says Maginley. “We can’t advertise everywhere. We often get compared to islands like Barbados, St. Lucia and Jamaica. And while that is flattering, the size of those islands compared to ours is much different. We have a total of 3,500 hotel rooms and a total tourism budget of $18 million. So, you can see we are a very small country.” Read more here.
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