Montserrat is not just a place – it’s a feeling. It’s a gasp of delight that escapes the minute the island is revealed through the clouds. It’s the taste on your lips when you see a photo of goat water cooking on a coal pot. But for too long, our tourism product has defaulted to offering the basics: sun, sand, volcano views, and quiet. While these have their place, they are not enough to compete with larger, more connected Caribbean islands. What makes Montserrat unforgettable is not being marketed, developed, or delivered at scale: our culture, history, and community.
It’s time to go beyond the pretty photos and design immersive, story-rich experiences that reflect who we are and in doing so, create jobs, especially for young people.
Why Immersion Matters
Global travellers, especially millennials and Gen Z, are looking for more than passive sightseeing. They want to cook with locals, dance to native beats, learn crafts, and understand the heartbeat of a place. According to Skift and Airbnb’s trend data, cultural immersion ranks among the top five motivators for travel decisions, often outweighing traditional resort offerings.
Montserrat’s size, community intimacy, and layered history make it a perfect fit. And now, immersive tourism presents a strategic opportunity to tackle one of our most urgent challenges: youth unemployment.
A New Role for the Next Generation
Young people often leave Montserrat in search of opportunity. But what if we made space for them to stay and thrive, not as clerical officers or mechanics, but as storytellers, curators, experience hosts, and digital entrepreneurs?
We don’t need to choose between honouring elders and employing youth. We can and must do both.
Many of our most powerful cultural assets live in the memories, skills, and rituals of our elders. What we need is a new model where young people work alongside them to co-create and deliver cultural experiences:
- A grandmother teaches cassava bread baking, while a young person films, markets, and manages bookings.
- A retired guide walks visitors through Plymouth’s ruins, while a youth narrates and shares the experience online.
- A bush tea garden becomes a two-generation wellness experience; one providing the knowledge, the other packaging and promoting it.
In this model, elders are paid and respected. Youth are employed and empowered. Culture is preserved and scaled.
Untapped Experience Niches
Music Heritage Journeys: Many of the physical spaces where 80s musicians once gathered no longer exist, but that doesn’t mean the stories of Air Studios have to be lost. By using technology, Montserrat can breathe new life into its music legacy. Just as 4th Dymension recreated Plymouth using augmented reality to show visitors what once was, a similar approach can be taken with the island’s music heritage. Imagine a guided tour where AR overlays reveal the now-lost venues where international artists recorded and relaxed, paired with immersive audio of the songs and voices from that era. Combine this with Montserrat’s love for calypso and soca, and you have the foundation for a dynamic experience, one that spans six decades of sound, from Hero’s first crown to Arrow’s global rise. These stories can be brought to life by those who lived them and captured by young creatives who can package and promote them for the world to see.
Watch Nia Golden’s Calypso, Love Nia as an example.
Culinary Immersions: Farm-to-table cooking classes, baking in traditional ovens, bush tea walks hosted by young/elder duos. These experiences can use a pop-up model so that there are no recurring costs for rentals but booked as classes fill.
Living History: Storytelling, Plymouth, Salem and St. Johns walking tours with firsthand accounts. Tours can speak of both the living and the dead. Where did current or past leaders live? Iconic villagers and how they were critical to keeping the community together? Stories about the best cooks in the village can be combined with a dining experience.
Craft and Creative Workshops: Pottery, jewellery, textile-making, and coconut leaf hats/macrame guided by masters, taught with youthful tech-savvy. Creating and selling keepsakes made from products found in the environment will have much more value and meaning than items made in China.
Faith and Ritual: Village celebrations, community events and spiritual traditions captured and shared through guided experiences and new media.
Imagine the Cudjoe Head Day celebrations as a package that is sold. A two-night experience that immerses visitors in the community. It can start with a short history lesson at the home of one of the village elders, then on to the After Work Lime on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, the group meets up to compete in the 5-Mile Walk and Run before heading to the beach for a swim. This can be followed by a massage at a day spa or a light lunch before heading back to their accommodations to relax. Then the evening ends with the cultural celebration in Cudjoe Head with dancing into the night. The host is also giving a play-by-play so the guests understand the masquerade dances and the role of each character in the band.
These everyday experiences are real opportunities to turn cultural heritage into economic engines.
Infrastructure vs Imagination
We don’t need million-dollar investments to build immersive experiences. We need coordination, creativity, and intergenerational partnerships. A one-room studio becomes a workshop. A backyard becomes a tasting space. A family elder becomes the centrepiece of a cultural tour.
What’s missing is the bridge and that’s where youth can shine.
Give them tools: training, storytelling skills, safety protocols, booking systems, marketing know-how. Let them help elders tell their stories in ways today’s travellers understand.
Actions:
- Create an Intergenerational Experience Incubator: This would pair elders with interested youth to co-create, price, and deliver immersive experiences.
- Train Youth as Cultural Producers: Offer certifications in experience design, storytelling, videography, and digital promotion—skills they can use for life.
- Build a Digital Experience Marketplace: A centralised platform where experiences can be booked, managed, and reviewed, with youth support.
- Fund Microgrants for Experience Development: $500 – $2,000 for materials, setup, and pilot runs, with priority given to elder-youth teams.
- Host a Live Like a Local Festival: Let these experiences shine during a weeklong event that draws diaspora, youth, and global media.
Institutional Roles
- Montserrat Tourism Authority: Lead experience certification, host training events, and support digital marketing for approved hosts.
- Government of Montserrat: Incentivise youth employment through tourism experience grants and embed this model into education and national development plans.
- Bank of Montserrat Ltd. & St. Patrick’s Co-operative Credit Union: Create youth-friendly microenterprise loans tied to tourism training and mentorship.
- Montserrat Hospitality Council: Serve as quality assurance body and advocate for fair pay for both elders and youth collaborators
What Individuals Can Do Now
- Youth: Look around your family and community. What stories, recipes, rituals, or histories could you help share?
- Elders: Consider which traditions or talents you could pass on. Partner with a young person to bring your legacy to life.
- Creatives and entrepreneurs: Package, promote, and help professionalise these experiences.
- Everyone: Start small. Test your idea. Share your vision.
The Economic Impact
Immersive experiences extend visitor stays and increase overall spend. They provide a reason to visit outside of peak seasons and festivals, which we’ve already seen drive arrivals during St. Patrick’s and December, with the summer Calabash Festival steadily growing in appeal.
Curated cultural and heritage-based experiences can become consistent income earners for young Montserratians with the right marketing and a commitment to delivering excellent service. And they don’t need to be budget-friendly to succeed. These can be premium offerings, allowing hosts to work full-time and sustainably in tourism.
If Montserrat nurtured just 10 to 15 anchor experiences built on intergenerational collaboration, we could unlock significant new revenue and create meaningful jobs for youth.
This isn’t a luxury, it’s a development strategy.
The real Montserrat is waiting to be shared and we must prepare our young people to lead the way.
