Tours for thought: we help judge a contest for St Lucian tourism entrepreneurs

The tour: Former taxi driver Arthur Anthony used to offer tourists impromptu visits to his home and garden when ferrying them around the island. “They did not understand our culture so I felt compelled to stop and give them a taste of my home life,” he explained. More than a decade ago, he decided to turn the spontaneous showarounds into something more official.

The tour is an hour-long gentle hike through the rainforest, with fruit and spice tastings part of the experience. Julie and I took the tour with guide Ken. He showed us how to make a kissing sound on the back of our hand to call birds, we tasted mangoes, passion fruit and fresh coconut, and met Mama, the matriarch of the family, who was holding court in her kitchen. She is a walking advert for the health benefits of noni juice, taken from the fruit of the morinda citrifolia tree.

“Mama has six children and 18 grandchildren yet she’s active like a 16-year-old,” Ken assured us.

Use of the manual: Anthony promised us he had used the manual. “It helped me fine-tune things and showed me I was on the right track,” he said. But he admitted he had struggled to follow it to the letter, owing to the quantity of information it contained and his heavy workload.

Judges’ verdict: His was more of a sales pitch than a presentation about using the manual, we thought. “It’s a lovely product and he’s passionate,” said Caroline. “But he needs to take more initiative if he wants to widen his clientele beyond cruise passengers delivered to him by a single destination management company.”

The tour: SeaSpray Cruises offers sailing tours on three catamarans and a newly introduced pirate ship. The origins of the business date back to 1991 - however, since Corey Devaux has taken over the running of it from his father, he has expanded and added FlyBoard St Lucia (pictured right), making him the first operator to offer this on the island.

FlyBoard is an extreme sport phenomenon - an aquatic jet pack that propels you into the air above the water. SeaSpray has also recently purchased Black Magic (below), for pirate-themed family tours, which started operating on August 1. The schooner replaces the Brig Unicorn, used in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which sank off the coast of St Vincent earlier this year.

Use of the manual: Corey Devaux had followed the manual meticulously, in particular with the set-up of his new businesses, FlyBoard St Lucia and a Pirate Family Adventure onboard the Black Magic. He created a management systems procedure booklet for FlyBoard, setting out what to do in the event of a fire on the jetski, for example. He also introduced maintenance logbooks to record fuel consumption and repairs.

He lowered his pricing, introduced strategic discounts and devised a schedule of operation for the FlyBoard, taking it to a different hotel beach every day of the week to help operators sell it in advance. He also introduced template email responses, changed the email account from Hotmail to @seaspraycruises.com, and invested in branded T-shirts for all staff.

He was able to demonstrate increased revenues up to 20% year-on-year in the past four months and said direct business was up 100% year-on-year, which he put down to glowing TripAdvisor reviews.

Judges’ verdict: Julie said Corey had been the most conscientious of the finalists since her visit in February, updating her monthly with the changes he had made, and we all thought he delivered an excellent case study in using the manual to pitch his business to the UK market.

Caroline said the Pirate Family Adventure was an exciting new family product for the island, but she had reservations about FlyBoard as Virgin Holidays had a policy not to sell it, anywhere, due to health and safety reasons.

However, we reasoned customers could still choose to do the activity independently, and would be covered, as SeaSpray had invested $2 million in a liability insurance premium. While Corey’s business approach was spot-on, DMV just edged it on account of having a more authentic tour, with wider potential community benefits.