St Lucia and US Virgin Islands post double-digit tourism numbers
BY NICOLE MC DONALD
Friday, May 28, 2010
ST Lucia and the United States Virgin Islands are the only two countries in the Caribbean that have recorded double-digit growth in the tourism industry.
At least that’s according to Smith Travel Research, which is an independent benchmarking company. St Lucia’s growth rate for the first quarter of the year was listed at 14.3 per cent. Smith research has also rated St Lucia in a top five rating by investors for its investment friendly climate. The news is welcomed by Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet who was informed of the rating at the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Investment Conference 2010 (CHTIC 2010) held in Puerto Rico on May 6.
“This means that the policies we put in place have been working and in very trying times too,” the minister told St Lucia’s Star newspaper. “We have been bucking the trend. The numbers are even more incredible when one takes into account that our US arrivals are up 37 per cent for the first quarter.”
The minister has been heavily criticised for some his marketing initiatives in the past.
“I feel vindicated. We feel vindicated because we know that our work is clearly cut out for us with the second half of the year coming,” he said before going to speak about other information that came out of the conference.
“What’s interesting about the conference was that while there was the general prognosis that the recession is over, they expected there to be a lag effect and they did not expect to see full recovery at least for another two years. The other thing that Smith research did was an analysis of the effects of 9/11. And it showed that it took the hotels six years to recuperate their rates after discounting after 9/11. With the levels of discounting due to deepness of the recession, they expected it to be eight years before hotels could recuperate rates. In the case of St Lucia the faster we can get back to the numbers then we can beat that trend. This will be very important for the viability of this country.”
Chastanet had some definite views on why St Lucia had recorded double-digit growth.
“Last summer we felt that Mexico would not recuperate. There was an opportunity for us to be able to steal some market share from the United States of America and we went out very aggressively. Once we were able to secure the TV show The Bachelor, we then spent a disproportionate amount of funds on the US market. We did a strong trade campaign in the fall along with a major radio and Internet campaign in the month of November and we saw immediate results from that. Now, following The Bachelor filming in St Lucia we expect to see the rewards.”
Chastanet also listed the increased airline seats to St Lucia during the upcoming summer.
Said the minister: “Last year we had 9000 seats a month coming out of the US market. This year we are going to have 20,000 seats. The increase in arrivals are not only better than 2009 but they are now the best we ever had. So we have seen real growth.”
The minister also spoke to the STAR about budget cuts and the tourism industry allocation being cut back.
“I was not very happy, very disappointed, but at the same time I also understand the government is in a very precarious situation. Expenses have gone up, especially in terms of the amounts that we have to pay for salaries, recurrent expenditure is high and we are going to have to find a way to make what we have work. It is going to require some levels of structural changes as to the way we do business at the St Lucia Tourist Board. We are presently reviewing our budget and preparing a proposal for the prime minister and minister of finance in terms of the way forward.”
Tourism Minister Allen Chastanet says he is encouraged by recent travel figures
Considering the financial resources available for tourism development the minister did speak about the support given to St Lucia’s carnival in the past and whether the million-dollar investment of last year will again come through this year.
“I made a three year commitment to Carnival. When we came into governance there were only about five bands and I said what we would do is invest a million dollars a year into the production of carnival to make it viable and hopefully at the end of three years we would be able to still spend the three million dollars but in marketing. I didn’t want to go spend the money in marketing unless we had a product. I think we have been able to achieve that. We had 22 bands last year; we had three bands with over 1,000 people. So I think from the point of view of the private sector, the entities that normally sponsor Carnival, we have now brought back Carnival to being the biggest event we have in St Lucia… We are going to spend our million dollars on marketing for the event. The Tourist Board remains committed to carnival.”
The minister added that he would like to see the St Lucia Tourist Board help local performers and artistes produce videos.
Said Chastanet: “It’s through these musical videos that we get the exposure we need to help promote our carnival,” he said. “We have been very disciplined as an organisation to spend money over the last three years on the Carnival product. That has paid off and a lot of musicians are back on their feet and St Lucians are beginning to expect a better and better Carnival. But the Tourist Board funds right now would be better spent on marketing the event. The Tourist Board is after all a marketing agency.
Tags: Allan Chastanet, St Lucia, Sugar Beach, The Bachelor