St. Maarten Tourism Shifts Marketing Focus Following Budget Cuts
The St. Maarten Tourism Bureau is implementing new strategies to increase tourist arrivals following a significant decline in its marketing budget for 2013, a top official said earlier this week.
“There was a 19 percent decrease in the 2013 tourism budget when compared to 2012,” said Edward Dest, acting director of tourism for St. Maarten, at a meeting of regional tourism stakeholders. Dest called for “closer co-operation with our partners" to improve both the tourism product and generate more visitors to St. Maarten.
“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. The organization has already increased its use of social media, including Facebook, and has re-vamped its website as an alternative to more costly initiatives, he said. “We are also looking at having an online St. Maarten Travel Agent Academy to educate more travel agents on how to promote and sell our destination,” a project expected to “be in place” by the fourth quarter 2013, he added.
St. Maarten’s air arrivals totaled 258,464 in the first six months of 2013, up 1.4 percent from 254,824 during the same period in 2012. However cruise ship passengers fell slightly, to 1,012,772 this year, down 5.6 percent to 1,071,491 in the first six months of 2012.
Dest attributed the decline in cruise visitors in part to “the overall decline in consumer trust” after several highly publicized cruise-line mishaps. St. Maarten had earlier reported a 12 percent increase in Canadian arrivals in the first six months of 2013.
He said to ensure its tourism future, St. Maarten tourism stakeholders must provide better service, upgrade hotels to be more competitive with others in the region and promote better sharing of information between the government and private sector.
Source: Travel Pulse, http://www.travelpulse.com/st-maarten-tourism-marketing-shifts-focus-following-budget-cuts.html
