Guests Are Flocking to the Caribbean Island of St Maarten Proper Now, Buoyed By a Newly-Accomplished Airport 

The landings. The seashores. The eating places. The leisure. The sheer friendliness. St Maarten has all the time been one of many Caribbean’s most beloved locations, and now the island is seeing extra guests than ever. 

That included greater than 600,000 stopover guests in 2024, in line with new Tourism Minister Grisha Heyliger-Marten, who caught up with Caribbean Journal on the current Routes Americas convention in Nassau. 

The renewed inflow of tourists comes because the island simply hit one other milestone, with the completion of the arrival and departure terminals on the Princess Juliana Worldwide Airport, which was named Caribbean Airport of the 12 months within the current Caribbean Journey Awards. 

It’s been a protracted journey for the airport and the vacation spot, out of the storms of 2017 after which right into a pandemic. 

“We’re extraordinarily completely happy that, after so a few years, the airport is lastly accomplished,” she mentioned. 

Probably the most intriguing improvement is that the island is contemplating a push to implement US Customs pre-clearance on the airport, which might imply vacationers can undergo US passport management and immigration in St Maarten after which take the equal of a home flight again to the US — one thing simply two locations, Aruba and Nassau, have accomplished. 

Earlier than that call, the airport goes to launch a carrying capability research, she mentioned. 

“At that time we’ll determine if we do want t increase our airport, after which we take it from there. Can we need to do pre-clearance? It’s one thing we’re contemplating, after which we take it from there.”

All this development means there’s extra to consider for the island, from new additions on the airport to improvements within the customer expertise. 

The latter, Heyliger-Marten informed Caribbean Journal, contains turning Philipsburg into “extra of an leisure capital.”

“Nobody is wanting only for procuring anymore,” she mentioned. “Individuals need leisure. We have now the perfect nightlife, we’ve the perfect meals. We need to capitalize on that, and we need to remodel the best way our capital is behaving. We need to create one thing new, one thing modern on the town.”

The expansion for the island has been sturdy and various — and one other 5 lodges are at the moment in improvement. On the aviation aspect, St Maarten is attracting new routes from markets like Minneapolis to a different more and more vital supply marketplace for the island: Canada. 

“We don’t speak about Canada usually sufficient,” mentioned Michael Dad or mum, business director on the airport, who joined Heyliger-Marten as a part of the St Maarten delegation. 

“We now have 4 completely different carriers now flying from Canada,” he mentioned. “We’re additionally exploring different hubs within the Midwest.” Then there’s the more and more vital intra-regional market, anchored by native service Winair, which serves greater than 30 completely different locations within the area, Dad or mum famous, reinforcing the airport’s place as an important Caribbean air hub. 

“Winair is definitely our second highest passenger service after American Airways,” he mentioned. 

When an island will get widespread, there are a number of challenges — on the one hand, it’s a must to maintain the expansion; then again, it’s a must to handle it. An enormous a part of that, the Minister mentioned, is a deeper understanding of the significance of tourism to the financial system. 

“We have now to guard the product,” she mentioned. “That is our bread and butter and that is how we shield it.”

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