St Maarten’s tourism rebirth has continued with the debut of the island’s newest hotel: the Adonis Cupecoy.
The Adonis is the first new-build hotel to open its doors since Hurricane Irma, with a setting in Cupecoy, just south of the border with Saint Martin.
Pascal Bataillé, president and founder of Adonis Hotels and Residences, confirmed the hotel’s opening to Caribbean Journal.
The hotel, located between St Maarten’s Porto Cupecoy marina and the Mullet Bay golf course, has a total of 52 sleek, modern rooms.
It’s the first-ever Caribbean hotel for France-based chain Adonis Hotels and Residences, which has a portfolio of 27 hotels in mainland France.
It’s a new, budget-friendly option for the island, with amenities including free Wi-Fi, parking and a daily buffet breakfast included in the rate.
The opening comes as another highly-anticipated hotel, the 124-room Morgan Resort and Spa is set to debut later this year in St Maarten. (That hotel will be set on Simpson Bay, directly adjacent to St Maarten’s iconic Sunset Beach Bar.
(Another major project is also in the pipeline, with fast-expanding Planet Hollywood Hotels brand planning to open an all-inclusive at the site of the former Great Bay resort in Philipsburg.
And the French side of St Martin will soon get a boost next month with the arrival of AMResorts’ first-ever French Caribbean property, the New Secrets St Martin.
St Maarten has been seeing a dramatic tourism recovery, with arrival numbers growing in excess of 100 percent compared to 2018.
That’s a testament to “all the hard word that everyone in the travel industry has been putting into ensuring that our tourism sector recovers quickly,” St Maarten Director of Tourism May-Ling Chung told Caribbean Journal.
“We’re thrilled to see that visitors are returning to the island in greater numbers,” she said.
That’s in large part due to quick work by the destination’s Princess Juliana International Airport to rebound with a provisional terminal in the wake of the storm, and complete transformations for St Maarten’s popular Sonesta Maho and Sonesta Ocean Point hotels.
St Maarten’s all-important cruise sector has also been showing renewed strength, with nearly 1.6 million cruise passengers last year, according to newly-released data from Port St Maarten.
That represented an increase of 2.2 percent compared to the previous year.
