Above: St Maarten
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Is it time for a St Maarten to reinvent its tourism strategy?
That was the call made by Edward Dest, acting director of tourism for St Maarten at the recent Annual Overseas Marketing Representatives Meeting.
St Maarten needs to reinvent itself to remain competitive, Dest said, calling for “closer cooperation with our partners” to improve the tourism product and attract more visitors.
“I call it St Maarten 5.0,” he said. “Why? We had the new port which was St Maarten 2.0, the Boardwalk was St Maarten 3.0, the airport improvement project was St Maarten 4.0 and now we need to reinvent ourselves in order to once again be a preferred vacation destination.”
St Maarten 5.0 would entail providing better service — including government service, upgrading the hotel product, increased engagement from the government to “once again achieve the preferred and safe vacation destination status” and a better job of sharing information between the government and private sector, he said.
Tourism contributes about $831 million to St Maarten’s annual GDP, or about 85 percent, supporting an estimated 14,000 jobs.
Stayover arrivals this year are up 1.4 percent compared to the same period last year, while cruise tourism has fallen by 5.6 percent.
But the tourism budget fell by 19 percent this year compared to 2012, Dest said.
“With a smaller operating budget this year, the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau had to be more creative then before in terms of stretching the available funds,” he said. “We cannot advertise blindly in major magazines not knowing what our return on investment is.”
That creativity is extending to partnerships with neighbours, including St Martin and Anguilla, to develop the South American market.
“We brought an additional 40 tour operators just for SMART from South America and Puerto Rico in order to further drive business to the destination,” he said. “We look forward to continuing to jointly work with Anguilla and St. Martin on other projects.”
That has already borne fruit, with COPA having announced two weekly flights from Panama to St Maarten.
“My vision of St. Maarten is that of a Disney World,” Dest said. “You come, you spend, you have a good time with wonderful memories and don’t complain how much money you spent until you reach home.”