BLOEMENDAAL--Representatives of the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau in Philipsburg and in the Netherlands hosted a special gathering for some thirty travel agents in Bloemendaal on Tuesday. Also in attendance to present their product were several St. Maarten hoteliers.
The event, one of several in the Netherlands this week, offered Marie-Line Andrew-Carty and Gianara Arrindell of the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau in Philipsburg and their colleagues of AVIAREPS in the Netherlands an opportunity to showcase the product St. Maarten.
The hotels present were Holland House, Divi Little Bay, Westin Dawn Beach resort & Spa, and the three Sonesta hotels, as well as S.E.L. Maduro & Sons and Le Beau Reizen, distributed flyers and other promotional material to the travel agents in an informal setting before dinner at a beach club in Bloemendaal.
At the start of dinner, Gianara Arrindell gave a presentation that included photos, detailed information on the island and why tourists should visit, as well a number of promotional videos of the destination St. Maarten, aircraft landing over Maho beach, the SXM Music Festival and the Heineken Regatta.
The number of visitors from the Netherlands has been on the rise, Arrindell announced. In 2016, some 43,170 tourists from the Netherlands visited the island, which is substantially more than the previous years.
Since September 2016, St. Maarten is again represented in the Netherlands by AVIAREPS. As part of a promotional campaign to re-position St. Maarten on the map, the new representative is organising a number of network events for partners, mostly tour operators and travel agents.
On Monday, a dinner was held in Rotterdam with 30 travel agents and on Thursday another dinner will take place in Valburg near Nijmegen, with another 30 travel agents. On Tuesday, a lunch meeting took place with five tour operators in Hoofddorp; some 50 to 55 travel agents and tour operators are expected to attend the dinner in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday.
So far, the events have been very successful with many enthusiastic reactions, said Marlon Klein of AVIAREPS. She said the Caribbean-like atmosphere in choosing the location and the menu contributed to promoting the destination St. Maarten in a cosy, relaxed atmosphere.
St. Maarten’s Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary Hasani Ellis did his fair share to contribute to that atmosphere by sharing his view as to why his island was the best, the most beautiful and most fun place to visit in the world.
Ellis told the travel agents that as St. Maarten’s contact persons they could help sell the destination. His enthusiastic story of the new attraction, Rainforest Adventures, surely attracted their attention.
