Saint Lucia’s Tourism Insights Conference, (held Monday at the Sandals Grande Beach Resort and Spa), provided industry partners with a top-line review of the calendar year and an opportunity for discussion on the strategic vision for 2024/2025.
The forum highlighted trends in travel, transportation and fostered dialogue on sustainable tourism, the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA) stated.
“We have to sell something that is authentic. For me the most successful marketing of Saint Lucia must start within. I am not saying you should not market outside and only market locally, but we have to start working on the mindset of our people. We have to make our people understand the criticality of the tourism industry. It is the largest income earner for this country,” Tourism Minister Dr. Ernest Hilaire told the audience, adding that tourism “creates the most employment (and) is the engine that fuels economic growth.”
According to him, “the core issue of ensuring that this world we’re living (in) now can be safeguarded for future generations must never go away and at a local level we must practice it. We mustn’t just say it because it’s part of a marketing tagline, we must actually practice it. When we sell Saint Lucia we must be able to show tangible evidence that we are moving in that direction.”
SLTA CEO Lorine Charles St. Jules (at a recent media briefing) noted that January and May were stellar months for the destination this year, where 3% growth was recorded over 2019 figures.
The CEO disclosed that by the end of July 2023, the island had recorded a 12% growth of stayover arrivals from 2022 to 2023.
According to her, “this represents 235, 000 so far compared to 35,000 visitor arrivals over 2019, which now puts the destination at 90% of 2019 arrivals which is the benchmark.”
Geraine Georges, Public Relations Manager for the SLTA on Monday noted that “we’ve noticed trends in growth in one of our markets particularly; we’re looking at Canada where we see more than 100% growth. We’re also looking at the Caribbean region where we have difficulty with air travel and we’re still noticing growth… we’re pretty much honing what works for us.”
Saint Lucia is “an award-winning destination when it comes to honeymoons and now adventure and nature so we’re marrying the three to really help to position Saint Lucia,” Georges added.
The latest figures from Tourism Analytics reveal that 748,373 people visited St. Lucia from January to September; that’s an increase of 68% from the number of arrivals for all of 2022 (444,618). U.S. visitors accounted for 56% of stayover arrivals through the first three-quarters of this year, ‘Travel Weekly’ noted in a post yesterday.
Additionally, “with numbers expected to continue an upward climb in coming years, the island is preparing to add at least 1,000 new hotel rooms by 2025, including 351 from the Secrets Saint Lucia Resort & Spa, slated to open next year, and the Cas en Bas Beach Resort, the first Destination by Hyatt-branded resort and residences in St. Lucia, which is also eyeing a 2024 debut. In addition, a 140-room Courtyard by Marriott-branded hotel at Pointe Seraphine Castries is slated for a 2025 opening.”
But that’s not all. On Monday Dr Hilaire revealed that “the Community Tourism Agency is working on a number of projects and I think early next year we will announce about 15 projects that we’ll start in Saint Lucia; plus, the Ministry of Tourism has a list of projects that will be announced early next year as it relates to improving the product… so there is a lot happening.”