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THEME:  ‘Tourism is Key ……..It Starts with Me ’

TOPIC:  ‘Wellness and Rejuvination ’

The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has declared 2018 ‘The Year of Wellness and Rejuvenation’ in the Caribbean.  With wellness and rejuvenation being important aspects of the Caribbean Tourism product, the Caribbean Tourism Organization is encouraging member countries and private sector partners to plan and organize events and activities around the theme that will appeal to consumers, travel agents and tour operators.

They were interested in seeing how the Turks and Caicos Islands would endorse and embrace the theme of ‘wellness and rejuvenation’ and seek not only to entertain tourists on this journey, but also take along the TCI populace as well.  Stating that locals should be encouraged to spend more of their money at home and enjoy various hotels/resorts on the island.

Through this campaign, CTO and its member countries and private sector partners will highlight the Caribbean as the leading choice for ‘Wellness and Rejuvenation.’

The task:

As Junior Minister of Tourism in the Turks and Caicos Islands, share your ideas on TWO new initiatives that you would like to recommend to the Minister of Tourism as it relates to ‘Wellness and Rejuvenation.’  Explain how the TCI will benefit from such new initiatives.

Students are required to prepare the above topic to discuss at the Youth Congress 2018.  Each student will be given three minutes to express his/her views on the topic.

They will be judged on the following:

  • Articulation, volume and fluency
  • Relevance and accuracy of knowledge
  • Presentation of information
  • Tone and tactfulness
  • Poise and confidence

Mystery Topic:

A mystery topic will be presented at the Youth Congress and each participant will have ONE minute to respond to the question.

The student who wins the competition will represent the Turks and Caicos Islands at the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s Youth Congress to be held in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in 2018, and will be given the title of JUNIOR MINISTER OF TOURISM 2018-2019.

This title will be held for one (1) year until a New Junior Minister of Tourism is selected the following year at the conclusion of the TCI Youth Congress in that year.

Recounting the experience:

On February 20th I took part in a high school competition to become the Junior Minister of Tourism.  I went up against high schools from Providenciales, Grand Turk, South Caicos and North Caicos. It was my first time competing in anything out of the school grounds but with the help of my English teacher Miss Rankin, my parents and my friends, I was able to prepare for this event.

For several weeks in the run up to the competition our team – Dorinda Handfield, Aletria Gardiner, Rebecca Archibold and Ms Rankin – met during our free time to discuss the task set by the Minstry of Tourism, to come up with possible responses and to hold our own internal competition to see which of us would represent our school in the final competition. Although I was chosen as the representative, it was with the team that we put together our ideas and structured the final speech.

The final competition was held at Beaches Resort and our team met up early to have a final run through. Before the event moved on to the students’ competition however, there was a guest speaker named Mr. Darron Turnquest who spoke to us about wellness and rejuvenation, which was the topic we had to speak on as well. He was an inspriational speaker, very animated and captivating. There were also speeches and introductions by various Ministers and leaders in our Tourism organistions in TCI.

I was very nervous, there were ten microphones set out on a stage facing the hundreds of people in the audience (all the High Schools across TCI were represented, plus the Chair was the current Junior Minister) . However, as soon as I got up on the stage my nervousness went away. I started to focus on my speech and I wanted to win so badly that I wasn’t thinking about how nervous I was – until I heard the three minutes bell, which threw me off totally!

Even though I did not go home as the Junior Minister of Tourism, I learnt so much from this experience. I learnt different ways to present a speech, mine was presented in a very different way from the winner, but also we heard so many other speakers that day, it was a real learning experience.  After the competition we were invited in the ballroom for a sit down lunch while meeting students from the different schools.  I enjoyed the whole experience and would definitely recommend others to get involved with this in future years.

Dorinda Handfield (Yr10)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_masonry_media_grid element_width=”12″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1521502905115-8c67713e-5103-7″ include=”2482,2481,2480,2479″][/vc_column][/vc_row]