LITTLE BAY – The team at Aqua Montserrat were able to give visitors from the Guadeloupe ferry on Saturday a real Montserratian welcome by providing multilingual guided tours.
Sporting T-shirts with their own version popular slogan, ‘Keep Calm and Parle Francais’, volunteers from partner organisation, Inspirational Volunteer Journeys (IVJ), acted as translators for the day.
According to a statement from the companies, Aqua Montserrat and IVJ teamed up with local artists Tabu and caterer Jacklyn Lewis to design a tour package with translation, that showcased the artistic talents and culinary skills of locals.
“Visitors enjoyed a hearty lunch with cocktails, after which local diver Keanu Barnwell led the hike to Rendezvous Beach, sharing his knowledge of local birds and other species along the way. This was followed by an island tour, stopping at the market in Little Bay and at stores in Salem Village while IVJ provided both translation and Euro to EC currency exchange information to local businesses.
“The highlight of the tour was a presentation at Richmond Hill by Oslyn Butler, who was born and raised in the area. There were also Spanish speaking customers on the tour, and the team were able to offer both French and Spanish translation for the presentation,” the statement read.
“I am really proud of my team,” said Veta Wade, Director of Aqua Montserrat. “This ferry from Guadeloupe brought much needed income for local businesses so I hope this is the first of many such tours. However, it goes to show that it is absolutely essential to have a multilingual team to be able to offer the level of customer service that is demanded by consumers in a global economy,” she added.
“We’ve been able to capture some excellent customer feedback on video,” said Vennetta Johnston, Director of IVJ. “We will translate and share this feedback with the local business so that we can work with them to improve the customer experience for future tours.”
More than 450 visitors from the French islands were on Montserrat for a day-tour organised by RTT Travel & Tours. Due to rough seas in Little Bay, the ferry was forced to dock in Plymouth which required logistical support by the Disaster Management Coordination Agency (DMCA), the police service and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO).
