Windward Islands Airways International (Winair) hosted its first Tourist Office conference. The one day conference was held in St Marten and was attended by a number of tourist board representatives from the airline's destinations.
Vice President and Director of Marketing & Sales / Customer Services, Claudio Buncamper said that the historic conference was aimed at focusing on ways to enhance the working relationship in the future with the representatives from the Tourist Offices from the different islands. He spoke of the importance of such a conference noting that it is critically important in ensuring the airline's relationship and performance are improved.
During the conference, Buncamper spoke about the airline's performance and the different aspects and challenges of his company's operation. In his update on the performance of the company, he spoke about future plans and initiatives that will be rolled out in 2010. This will help boost the already great services the airlines offers. The conference was hailed a success.
Commenting on the performance of the airline in 2008 and 2009, Buncamper said that 2009 saw an increase in the level of quality and service that was delivered. He however pointed out that there were increased challenges that the airline has been facing for the past two years. Consequently, management has sought avenues and ways of enhancing the service they deliver to passengers. He noted that a number of upgrades were done for the customers and upgrading of the airlines services.
During the one day conference a detailed plan of their activities planned for 2010 was presented by the representatives of the various tourist boards. Both Winair and the islands have agreed to explore possibilities of working together. Buncamper reported that Winair decided that a further meeting will be held with the various tourist boards on their islands in an effort to iron out pressing issues with the various stakeholders; among them being hotels, taxi, tour operators, restaurants among others. He disclosed that his airline will pursue the possibilities of combining packages with the tourist board thus being able to bring more affordable packages to passengers.
Buncamper quizzed on his thoughts of the meetings said he is very satisfied with the outcome. He noted that the meeting stressed the number of possibilities both his company and the tourist boards can pursue in enhancing and strengthening their relationships. "The meeting enforced that we can certainly work together thus being able to facilitate and increase our regional passenger traffic as we seek to ensure that air travel remains low and very affordable," he said.
The VP and Director of Marketing & Sales / Customer Services suggested that it would be very important for the St. Maarten Tourist Office to form a committee and have pre-meetings with representatives;(travel agents, tour operators) from the different islands. He stressed that this initiative will significantly help promote and publicize the work and activities of the tourist boards. He said that based on the feedback from such an initiative it will also help in better informing the decision makers on how to proceed. He gave his company's commitment that he would be available to attend these meetings after mid January 2010 taking into consideration that the airline is going through its high season which is seeing increased passenger traffic this year.
Buncamper also stressed to the tourist officials that his company was currently reviewing the immigration policy in SBH. He said that they see it as being very strict noting that when someone enters with incorrect documentation and is sent out immediately, the airline is still fined EUR 5,000 per passenger. This, Buncamper said results in the airlines suffering innocently from such a policy which he noted is too harsh.
"We are currently exploring this policy to see what representation we can make to the relevant authorities as it is very strict and in many cases resulting in us being fined innocently for something that we should really not be fined for," he stressed. The conference was held at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort in St. Maarten.
