BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOR the second time in less than two years, the owner of Island Paradise Tours, Rosevelt Taylor, has been recognised for his highly-rated contributions to the Tourism Industry of the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Following on the heels of the endorsement by Jim Abney, Director/Principal Project Manager of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Island Paradise Tours was awarded a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor for Business.
In a correspondence to Taylor, President of TripAdvisor for Business Christine Petersen stated that the Certificate of Excellence is a testimonial to his high standards and that it honours businesses that consistently earn top ratings from travellers affiliated with Trip Advisor.
“With a rating of 5.0, Island Paradise Tours has earned a place among the very best. This award, which is given only to the most exceptional performers in TripAdvisor’s global business community, is a significant achievement deserving of recognition from both travellers and staff. We hope that you will proudly display the enclosed certificate for everyone to see,” Petersen said.
TripAdvisor noted that Island Paradise Tours was rated number one from among 27 tour operators in St. Kitts and Nevis and it has maintained that rating for the last nine months.
TripAdvisor is said to be the world’s largest social network with over 100 million travellers using the website. The travel website was founded by Stephen Kaufer in February 2000 and it assists customers in gathering travel information, posting reviews and opinions of travel-related content as well as engaging in interactive travel forums.
On November 3, 2010, Abney and his wife had visited St. Kitts and they were taken on an island-wide tour by Taylor.
On his return to the USA, Abney sent a letter to Taylor, which read: “I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know how much my wife and I enjoyed the tour you gave us when we visited St. Kitts on November 3rd. I have posted the following review on Trip Advisor. When I get a chance, I will write a review of our entire trip and post it on Cruise Critic, which will include the information below for our stop in St. Kitts.”
Abney’s review posted on Trip Advisor read, “If you are visiting St. Kitts for only a day, (i.e. Cruise Ship stop), I highly recommend Island Paradise Tours.
The owner Rosevelt Taylor provides a great tour at a very reasonable cost. Rather than spending lots of money and taking a tour with 40-50 people, on a ship sponsored shore excursion, do yourself a favor and check him out on the web. I contacted him via email and told him exactly what we wanted to see and do.
“He was very accommodating, suggesting the ‘Best of St. Kitts/Panoramic Tour’. I told him I wanted to go snorkeling and he dropped us off at a snorkeling site and picked us up later at no additional cost. When we got off the ship, he was waiting for us at the dock and there were only two other people on the tour, besides me and my wife. We got to see a great deal of the island and he stopped whenever we wanted to get out and take a picture. Best of all, he is very informative and prides himself on giving an educational tour of his beloved island.”
Speaking with SKNVibes, Taylor, who served in the US Armed Forces for some 10 years, was pleased with the comments made by Abney and noted that he always tries his best at “being an excellent ambassador for my beloved country”.
Recounting his experience during the early years when he became involved in the Tourism Industry, Taylor said, “I started out with a four-seater jeep and most of the times when I tried to get a job at Port Zante they would give me two tourists to take to the beach, and I realised that I couldn’t survive like that.
“And when I tried to talk to them about the limited amount that would normally be given to me, they told me that my bread was already buttered. That was something I couldn’t understand…I had to make a living and when I started I could not have afforded to purchase a bus, so I had to work with my small jeep.”
Since then, Taylor had discarded the jeep and now owns four coasters and an omnibus.
Before the acquisition of his fleet, he noted that his educational background, both formal and informal, had provided him the knowledge of how to win the tourists’ appreciation for the service he provided.
Taylor stated that informal education occurs in an amorphous way and he was high in praise of his grandparents who had provided him with the knowledge of the islands’ fauna, flora and its culture.
“Taking into consideration that I was a ‘new kid on the block’ in the Tourism Industry and that I would normally be given a very small amount of people to take on tours, I decided that every time I had the opportunity of giving someone a tour I would go the extra mile by introducing them to the different flowers and plants that we have on the island, as well as the different herbs and their properties.
“I showed them places of interest, as all tour operators do; but I also showed them our plant life and told them of our culture and our food. During my tours, I would take whatever fruits are in season and offer them to the tourists. Fruits such as mangoes, gooseberries and genips…and while many of them may know about mangoes, the majority had never seen or heard about genips.”
He claimed that some tourists were amazed when he showed them what locals call cherry nut and explained how it is grown.
“Some of them were amazed when they see what we call cherry nut. They call it cashew. And when I would have asked them what it was, most would say it is a pepper because they have seen how it is grown. They believe that cashew grows underground like peanuts.”
Noting one of the strategies he uses while on tours, Taylor said he would stop just above Bloody Point on the western corridor of Basseterre and gather different herbs, including “wind bush, basil and canker-berry” and explain their properties and uses to the tourists.
Taylor is the second of eight children and vividly remembers that when he was a child what the older folks would do when babies were suffering from tongue-thrush.
“The older folks would crush some canker-berries and, with the use of a clean piece of cloth, apply it on the baby’s tongue. After three applications the tongue-thrush would disappear and they had no need to go to a doctor or to a pharmacy and pay a lot of money to have it cured. These are natural things that the tourists enjoy seeing and learning about their properties.”
He is of the view that there is a lot more tour operators could do other than taking tourists around “our beautiful islands to view our Victorian-structured buildings and such like. We in the Caribbean have a very rich culture and the tourists want hear about it. I even introduce them to the Dutch oven and explained how it was used from the days of our foreparents until replaced by the conventional ovens”.
Many well-wishers had congratulated Taylor on receipt of his award and among them was his long-standing friend Commissioner of the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force, Celvin ‘CG’ Walwyn.
Taylor has sent out a clarion call to all tour/taxi operators and citizens to maintain the Federation’s history of being the best tourist destination in the Caribbean.
