PHILIPSBURG:--- A recent brain storming session by the members of the Rotary Club of St. Maarten has resulted in club members identifying ways to support and guide the execution of Rotary's next community project: Tourism awareness in the community of St. Maarten.
The brain storming session deviate from what the regular weekly lunch meetings of the Rotary Club held at Divi Little Bay every Wednesday. A regular meeting consist of standard agenda issues such as updates by committees of planned projects, review of projects done, RI (Rotary International) news, District news, fellowship and a presentation by an invited guest often in accordance with the theme of the month.
The meeting of Wednesday, October 9 however, was different. Considering the RI theme for October, which is Vocational Service, Naomi Zaloumis was invited to conduct a brain storming exercise which would lead to the answer to the question: "How do we make everyone on St. Maarten understand how important Tourism is?"
Naomi Zaloumis is a 23 year old student from Breda, The Netherlands where she studies Communication at Fontys University of Applied Sciences. She is in her third year and is doing her internship with the St. Maarten Hospitality & Trade Association, where she focuses on business communication.
She was invited by Rotary President Maria Buncamper to engage Rotarians in an effort to start developing the next Rotary project which would focus on Tourism Awareness within the St. Maarten community.
The exercise took about 45 minutes and resulted in six teams of Rotarians and guests providing answers to the question. "Evident was the red line that ran through all suggestions or solutions, which was to increase awareness of the our tourism industry substantiated with facts and figures using audio and visual aids to demonstrate what St. Maarten would look like if we lost our tourism industry compared to it being vibrant," Rotary President Maria Buncamper-Molanus said.
Naomi was supported by the Executive Director of SHTA Karen Hana and fellow intern at SHTA Anthony Gibs. The Rotary Club intends to collaborate with SHTA and other interested parties to further workout feasible scenarios to bring the importance of tourism for St. Maarten in focus.
