Ex CNN anchor to help promote new Caribbean Sun service
St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be in for a boost this week when an international media team, including former CNN news anchor and award-winning broadcast journalistÊAndria Hall, visits the island nation as part of Caribbean Sun inaugural flight activities.The Emmy-award winning Hall, along with several regional and international media officials, will converge on the island on Monday to commemorate Caribbean Sun’s new service from San Juan to St. Vincent aboard a 37-seat Dash 8-100 Turbo Prop aircraft.
Inaugural activities in Kingstown on Monday evening include a “Sun Dance Concert”, featuring the best of “Vincy” talent - soca artistes, folk dancers and the International Soca Monarch, Bunji Garlin from Trinidad and Tobago.
Media representatives will also visit Canouan, in the heart of the Grenadines, and stay at the upscale Raffles Resort Canouan Island, which features a Jim Fazio-designed 18-hole championship golf course.
“It is a joy to continue covering the Caribbean region,” said Hall, who along with her husband, Clayton Sizemore, CNN’s manager of operations, will shoot an independent television pilot on the island. Hall will also air reports on her visit on “The Walk at Work” Christian radio broadcast, aired weekly on WMCA in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and over the internet at www.wmca.com.
Her latest radio show focuses on tourism in Trinidad and Tobago where Hall recently addressed a packed Public Relations Association seminar on “The Impact of Ethics on Public Relations”. The seminar was sponsored in part by Counterpart International’s Caribbean Media Exchange on Sustainable Tourism (CMEx).
The new Caribbean Sun service departs from San Juan’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport (SJU) at 2:30 p.m. four times a week, providing ample connection time from the numerous US carriers serving San Juan.Ê The flight time is two and a half hours and return flights will depart St. Vincent at 9 a.m. Flights to St. Vincent operate Thursday through Sunday and return service Friday through Monday.
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Officials report that a partnership with US Airways has opened up numerous US feeder markets, while seamless connections can also be made with JetBlue Airways and Delta’s Song.
“We’re delighted that our friends and partners at Caribbean Sun recognize the potential in launching this new service, making the exceptional St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ destination experience more easily accessible from the US market.ÊVisitors will now be able to enjoy the option of connecting flights from the convenient hub of Puerto Rico, opening up several key markets for us,” said Vincentian Minister of Tourism and Culture Rene Baptiste.Ê “These flights will play an active role in our plans for the sustainable, measured growth of St. Vincent’s dynamic tourism industry.”
“It’s an excellent route for Caribbean Sun Airlines,” said airline President Yolanda Suarez, who also is the Chief of Staff of Stanford Financial Group, owned by Texan billionaire Allen Stanford. “St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the islands in the southern Caribbean will benefit from the service.”
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