There is a saying, which is really true, that first impressions count particularly in a case of visiting a country or meeting a person initially. If those impressions are good, one never knows what opportunities for further engagement or benefits may eventually crop up. This holds true for visitors arriving on our shores at the ports. Their first encounter with Immigration and Customs officers may either make them feel welcome or unwelcome by the treatment they receive.

If they are well-treated, with all the respect and courtesy (and sometimes pampering), chances are that the benefit to Anguilla will be return visitors providing well-needed foreign exchange and tourism numbers. If they are impolitely handled, and made to feel unnecessarily uncomfortable, the consequence is that Anguilla will lose visitors and tourist dollars. We cannot afford this.

It is not a pleasant matter to mention, but it is compelling to do so, that there are too many complaints of poor visitor reception at our ports. The Chief Minister, who has responsibility for tourism, referred to it at one of his recent press conferences. It is no doubt that he was either told about this at one of his overseas tourism conferences or read a letter to that effect to this newspaper from a visitor expressing disgust and threatening not to return to Anguilla.

This is a serious matter which must not be overlooked. It is conceded that all visitors to our shores must submit to Immigration and Customs regulations to which they are accustomed everywhere. What is important in this process is the manner in which the officers do their work and the sense of discretion, judgment and common sense they employ. Obviously, the problem of ill-treatment, if it can be called so, cannot be widespread but rather limited to a few officers who are either over-zealous, have an inclination towards egotism or, hopefully unlikely, pathetically uncouth. A solution may be for senior officers, more experienced in customer relations, to supervise their juniors who may either be new to the job, untrained or, for some reason, have an attitudinal personality which really has no place among the welcoming gatekeepers of our lovely shores.
It is undoubtedly that some officers can simply fall short of exercising their discretion at times which even some local travellers complain about. Take, for example, the case of a well-known Anguillian professional and service provider returning home after a brief vacation. Why should the contents of his luggage be thrown out, unnecessarily embarrassing him? It is not that he is above the law, but there is a polite way of doing one’s work. The tourist, who stood behind, and watched, shook his head no doubt wondering what his fate would be. For the sake of our up-market tourism industry, our name abroad and our desire to have repeat visitors, let us be better and polite gatekeepers of Anguilla because this is an important component of our tourism.

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