A tall order

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Gordon said the different types of visitor to Sir Bani Yas Island was causing challenges for the facilitators.

TDIC activities facilitator Adam Gordon can hear the call of the wild every day when he works to assist the menagerie of guests at the Desert Islands Resort & Spa in Abu Dhabi.

Feeding giraffes and doing a 28km bike ride are all in a day's work for Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) activities facilitator Adam Gordon.

Gordon works with groups of guests at the TDIC-owned Desert Islands Resort & Spa by Anantara in the idyllic surrounds of Sir Bani Yas Island, off the coast of Abu Dhabi.

Gordon said he was normally up at 7am each morning to refuel the jeep and give it a wash before the day's first activity.

"The first activity starts at 8am and it could be anything. We normally find out the evening before or on the morning whether or not we will be doing a game drive, a kayak, a bike ride - there are seven different bike routes - or maybe snorkelling and archery," he explains.

"We could also go for a hike; either a game hike to see the animals or a wadi hike up into the mountains."

The activities facilitators are expected to conduct all the different activities, but whether or not they are doing one activity for the entire day is normally dictated by the level of demand and the ease of scheduling.

"If we are very busy then we will structure the activities so one person is only doing game drives, for example, just to make it simple but other wise we will try and mix it up," Gordon says.

"But you are just as likely to do a game drive in the morning then a bike ride and a snorkel."

The resort currently offers three sets of activities a day - at 8am, 11am and just after 3.30pm - through TDIC.

"There are some more activities in the pipeline which are water-based for summer such as sailing," Gordon says.

"We are keen to have things like scuba; there are some great scuba sites within a 20-minute boat ride from here, including nice wrecks and some turtle breeding sites.

"But in summer the game drives will be done really early with spotting lamps when it is dark to avoid the heat. I also suspect the 28km bike route will be less and less popular."

With a background in adventure tourism after working as a ski instructor and resort manager in France, Gordon says he had a lot of on-the-job training since coming to the island in September last year.

"The first thing we got when we arrived was a big folder full of information about the animals, but since then we have done a range of test game drives with people from the conservation team and the welfare team who know all about the different animals," he explains.

"Not only do they know the individual animals quite well but they also know the species' details and information about them. To a degree I have learned on the job, but from day one there has also been a lot of information on hand.

"You learn something new everyday, particularly because the animals behave a different way each time - there will be a rutting season then a breeding season then a birthing season - so there is always something new to watch."

Gordon says the facilitators are becoming more involved in the conservation and sustainability activities on the islands.

"We get to see the place develop as it moves from being a private nature reserve to a tourist development.

"The guides' [roles] are becoming more and more integrated with what happens with the animals. Because we are always moving around we see a lot of stuff that other people might not get to see, so we will be reporting back to the animal welfare team that there is an animal which looks sick or injured."

According to Gordon there is a large breadth of visitors to the island which can cause challenges for the facilitators.

"A lot of people don't know what to expect when they get here," he says. "Some are expecting a spit of land with a couple of palm trees and a hotel, others are expecting South Africa and others are expecting to see it like a zoo with lions and tigers and they don't understand what we are trying to do here.

"We are trying to set up a sustainable sanctuary. In the future we will have a solar and wind site which will power the island. We want to introduce more and more Arabian species to the island to have it as a functioning eco-system, so when people ask us why we haven't brought elephants here there are just a million different reasons why that wouldn't work."

The island management's commitment to sustainable development on Sir Bani Yas island means that the role of the facilitator will expand in the future.

"Everything on the island is guided so you can't just turn up in your own motor car and go cruising around," Gordon explains.

"There are two reasons; one is the protection of the island where we don't want motor cars zooming around everywhere and the other is that to get the most out of the island you need to be with someone who knows the place and knows the animals.

"It is our job to make sure people get as much out of their stay as possible."

And at the end of the day Gordon says he is getting as much of out of his experience as possible too.

The best thing about the job is "getting to live on the island", Gordon concludes.

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