With the number of new COVID-19 infections related to St. Maarten’s now-dominant British variant seemingly under control and more people getting vaccinated, attention must shift towards reviving the tourism economy. The country is in a favourable position to sell itself as a reasonably “COVID-19 safe” destination backed up by the available data.
Turks and Caicos (see Monday paper) reported a near doubling of visitors for March compared to January and February, while April is foreseen to have been as good. Aggressive promotion is mentioned as one of the possible factors, along with widespread vaccination in source markets and spiralling demand among restless travellers.
Little has been heard of late from government about post-pandemic marketing initiatives and no recent room-occupancy figures were released for a while. It would appear important at this juncture to update the public and help get the hospitality industry back in gear with a better idea of what to expect going into this summer.
Of course, much depends on developments abroad such as discussions regarding a European Union (EU) vaccination passport or at least one for the Dutch Kingdom that will hopefully include the Caribbean parts. It is anticipated that the Netherlands will soon scale back down from the blanket negative travel advisory to a more relaxed one based on colour codes depicting risk levels.
Monday’s edition also contained a story that US-bound passengers can now use some self-administered tests, another matter of possible local significance. What happens in North America in this sense may obviously prove crucial moving forward.
“The Friendly Island” needs to be on the ball and waste neither time nor effort in getting back to doing what it does best, most fittingly referred to as “everybody’s business.”
