We’ve referred to as it the Sandals Impact. When Sandals goes right into a vacation spot, large issues often occur within the airlift sector.
It’s occurred earlier than — in locations like Grenada, when the island welcomed its first Sandals again in 2013, a major improve in airlift shortly adopted.
Quick ahead to 2022, when Sandals opened its first resort on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao — and in only one month, the island set its all-time month-to-month document for American vacationer arrivals. In truth, Curacao is breaking its all-time tourism data this 12 months, too.
That’s already been the case in Saint Vincent, the place Sandals this spring debuted its brand-new Sandals Saint Vincent resort.
Airlift to the island between September 2023 and what’s projected for September 2024 is up by a whopping 178 p.c.
It’s also possible to see the reverse in locations like Tobago, the place a deal to carry Sandals fell via a number of years in the past and the island nonetheless doesn’t have a single nonstop flight from the United State.
“When Sandals goes to market, it brings the Caribbean alongside,” stated Gary Sadler, Government Vice President of Gross sales & Trade Relations at Distinctive Holidays, Sandals’ worldwide consultant. “That is vital to vacation spot stakeholders and journey advisor companions upon whose shoulders Sandals stands because it introduces new audiences to the distinctive experiences and pleasures of Caribbean vacationing.”
Certainly, Sandals’ entry to the “primary” island of St Vincent and the Grenadines has been an enormous raise for the broader vacation spot, making it simpler to go to each St Vincent and the gorgeous islands of the Grenadines, house to private-island resorts like Palm Island and charming little locations like Bequia.
“We’re constructing out a tourism sector that’s distinctive and wonderful and air is vital to that effort,” St Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Minister Carlos James informed Caribbean Journal in a press release. “We wish to welcome everybody to expertise Vincy, an genuine Caribbean vacation spot, one thing by no means seen, felt or imagined and all of it begins with making it simple for guests to get right here.”
