by Devonne Cornelius
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): The Nevis Tourism Authority has issued a statement following the staging of the Nevis Mango Festival, which has been receiving some mixed reviews for its organization and execution on the final day of the annual event.
“We at the Nevis Tourism Authority wish to thank you for turning out to our 9th staging of the Nevis Mango Festival which took place over this past weekend from June 30 to July 02. Patrons came out on Sunday to the “For the love of mangoes” event held at the Malcolm Guishard Recreational Park in record numbers. The unprecedented turnout was demonstrative of the success of our marketing efforts for this year’s staging of the festival.
We are, however, aware that the large number of patrons created some logistical challenges which detracted from the quality of the event for some who attended. We sincerely apologize for those challenges and are in the process of undertaking an urgent post-mortem to examine how we can improve so that all our patrons can be guaranteed a first-class event,” the statement said.
Patrons took to social media to express their disappointment. One person said, “This is absolutely the worst experience I’ve ever had!”. Other patrons claimed there was no food by the time they got to the event, while others said the wait time in lines to get food or drinks or enter the venue was hours.
There were patrons who congratulated the Nevis Tourism Authority on the hosting of the event, describing it as highly successful. “Kudos to the Nevis Tourism Authority on producing, what I think was quite a successful mango festival…the people came out in huge numbers, and the chefs did a tremendous job with tasty dishes,” a patron wrote on Facebook.
The Nevis Tourism Authority said it has already started reviewing this year’s event and planning for the 10th anniversary next year.
“We assure patrons that next year we shall be bigger and better and encourage feedback from the public as to how we can better ensure that the Nevis Mango Festival continues to be one of the Caribbean’s premier festivals.”
