~ Offers suggestions for sustainability ~
“It should be considered a major failure by government that a plan for the sustainable recovery of tourism has yet to be presented to the people of St. Maarten.” So says Independent Member of Parliament Christophe Emmanuel while revealing his own suggestions for a more resilient tourism sector post COVID-19. “No plan after the pandemic for your sole economic pillar is pure negligence and effectively puts the country in a position to play catch-up in the region for years to come,” he added.
The MP chided government for not realizing, or seemingly forgetting, that St. Maarten does not only have to deal with the fallout of the pandemic, but the possible fallout from the strike of yet another major hurricane. “We should have used this time to develop plans to mitigate these outside shocks. To date, government has no tourism recovery or economic plan,” he said.
He said that it is one thing to boast that we “could” have a good tourism season ahead, but it is quite another to show how you will make it sustainable. “We have yet to hear how government will restore traveler confidence to the destination and how cooperation between government and the different tourism stakeholders will be strengthened to build a more sustainable and resilient product. Where are our policymakers, and what are our strategies to stay competitive? We just don’t know and that is a failure on the government’s part,” the MP said.
MP Emmanuel suggested that “whenever government wakes up”, it should look at tourism as a completely changed entity that will be looking for new or adapted strategies moving forward. In that context, he suggested targeting people who will be eager to fly and experience the world again, such as the Millennial traveler who is adept at working on the go.
He also suggested focusing on the authentic experience of St. Maarten which can best be presented by small hotel properties. “Yes our major hotels are important, but people will be looking for an authentic experience. We need to support and fully include the smaller properties that can deliver this. We need to incentivize their operations and capabilities,” he said.
The MP further suggested that St. Maarten has to understand the business of being and staying competitive. He said all islands in the region offer almost the same thing and all-island are busy coming up with attractions that set them apart. “Setting yourself apart means you have a competitive advantage. We must be creative and sit with our tour operators to map out a unique experience for visitors. But I doubt that we have even done that to this point,” he said.
He said a dynamic campaign to push the island’s health and hygiene efforts will also be important and travelers will now look at how safe they will be on St. Maarten. The MP also suggested that focus should be placed on cruise conversion to stay-over, “something the pandemic further highlighted with cruise being crippled,” he said. Lastly, the MP suggested more robust initiatives to attract regional travelers who still see St. Maarten as a shopping mecca. “This sector is simply ignored and this has to change,” he said.
“There are strategies that can be put in place to help our tourism economy. Am I a tourism expert or an economist? No, I am not, but a blind person can see that we are not doing anything compared to our competition in the region to prepare our island for a post-COVID rebound. It’s almost like we are happy where St. Maarten is geographically so we tell ourselves the tourists will come anyway. In the meantime, our competition is making industry investments to leave us way behind. We don’t seem to understand that the traveler will have plenty of choices. If we don’t wake up and move, we will no longer be a preferred choice in the Caribbean,” the MP concluded.
