Lots and lots of cruise ships

St.Maartens’s most important if not only source of income is Tourism.
The island receives a large amount of tourists by plane, cruise ships, yachts and boats each year. The biggest mass of tourists that visit the island travel by cruise ships. Late last year the world’s largest cruise liner, The Oasis of the seas docked on St. Maarten for the first time, and will continue to do so once a week for the rest of the season. Chief Operating Officer of the St. Maarten Harbor Group of Companies Keith Franka stated on Wednesday January 6th 2010 that it was an historic day for St. Maarten and the harbor, because of the fact that over sixteen thousand tourists made their way off six cruise ships on Wednesday at the St. Maarten port. It was the first time that the two cruise piers of the harbor were fully occupied by cruise ships. This was a very successful day for all the stores in town. St.Maarten is becoming more and more popular through all the cruises that dock on our island. Through all the tourists that visit our island on these cruises we get a lot of mouth-to-mouth advertising. It can be expected that Wednesday’s conditions will repeat itself at least four times for the remainder of the year. St. Maarten is continuously improving the harbor facilities which were completely renovated to receive the amount of cruise passengers it does per day a few years prior. Water taxies and busses are then provided to these tourists to carry them to the town, beaches and/or French side to shop, eat and just relax on the island. Promotion is also being done in all travel magazines and brochures and at cruise ship travel agencies in order to attract more tourists to the island.

Fine dining

St.Maarten is popular for its dining. We have so many restaurants that tourist can choose from. We have local, Italian, Indian, Spanish, Chinese, Indonesian, Dutch, French food, and thats just to name a few. We have a taste of everything on our tiny multi-cultural island. So whatever you’re in the mood for, we have to offer. This is of course good for our tourism. You can find all the different types of restaurants that our island has to offer on the different St.Maarten websites that they are. You can also find them in those vacation magazines from St.Maarten that you can most likely find at a tourism bureau or airport. On the site or in the magazine will give you a list of restaurants to choose from which makes it easier for the people vacationing on our island. We have restaurants with live entertainment and restaurants that would have a famous chef for the night which makes it exciting to dine in St.Maarten. The tourism bureau of St.Maarten also plays a big role when it comes to promoting the restaurants when they go to other places to promote St.Maarten they always talk about the best restaurants that our island has. The restaurants always have specials especially for the tourists visiting our island; I think this is a good idea because we're known as the friendly island. When you’re on vacation you certainly don’t want to cook that’s why we take care of the food for you because on St.Maarten we have nothing but fine dining.

The Boardwalk

The boardwalk is a beach promenade in the town of St.Maarten that is very popular for the tourists and locals. The beach promenade was made by the Commissioner of Tourism. It was made with the goal to attract more tourists to town but also locals. The beach promenade doesn't have a specific target group because there are things to do for all ages. The beach promenade is there for when you're done with shopping you can take a stroll down the boardwalk. The beach promenade has restaurants, bars, ice cream parlors, stores and an arcade for the kids. It’s also a beach so you can take a swim while you're strolling down. The boardwalk is popular for all kind of events such as new years. The boardwalk promotes events to hotels made especially for tourists. The boardwalk is where you can have a good time island style. The boardwalk is popular for the tourists that come from the cruise ships. There is a special water taxi that takes you from the cruise straight to the boardwalk. This was made for the tourists who wanted to go straight into town. St.Maarten keeps coming up with all these ideas and activities for the tourists that keep our image as one of the best vacationing spots. When it comes to the marketing aspect of the boardwalk there is not much in travel magazines or brochures, we need to increase the promotion. We need to try and get the hotels to have special busses going to the beach promenade. It is one of St.Maarten finest trademarks.

Nature at its best.

A reason why many tourists come to St.Maarten is because of are many nature trails. This is something our island is really popular for. We have lots of different types of hikes to follow, you will be able to hike all the way around the island along white sandy beaches, coral beaches, and climb the cliffs to view areas of St Martin from various perspectives. A popular hike that is visited by many tourists a day is The Lottery Farm hike. It’s located on the French side of the island. It’s a beautiful hike through the hills of St.Maarten. The owners realized how good the hike was doing and decided to extend its activities to attract more tourists and different target groups. They now have a hike and fly zone for kids. There is now a restaurant where you can have a nice lunch after your hike. All these nature hikes are talked about in the travel magazines and are most likely advised at an activity desk in a hotel. We have many other hikes that aren’t as popular because they are not as clear to walk through. In my opinion we should make these trails easier for people to walk because it’s a very nice activity to do on the island. The tourism bureau should try and promote these natural trails because these are the simple things of the island that tourists would love to see. Our island has beautiful nature and it’s something beautiful to see.

Mega Yachts

St.Maarten usually caters the middle class tourists but lately it’s been catering to upper middle class tourists. The main reason for this is, is that St.Maarten has a lot of docks specially made for mega yachts, a popular place to dock your yacht on St.Maarten is The Yacht Club. This mega yachts are owned by wealthy people. Docking a yacht at one of our docks costs about $200 dollars per hour. We gain a lot from these mega yachts. The people stay at our fancy pent houses and contribute to our island by buying groceries, renting cars and mainly just spending their vacation here. If more upper middle class people were to spend their vacation here it would better our image as an island. Right now we have the image that we go for quantity and not quality. This meaning that we go for a lot of tourists that don’t spend a lot of money on our island instead of going for a smaller amount of tourists who spend a lot of money on our islands. Islands in the Caribbean who do have the image of quality are St.Barths and Anguilla. A lot of celebrities go to these islands. But this year we’ve had celebrities stay on St.Maarten such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Mariah Carey as well. If a celebrity stays on the island it promotes our island big time. So we should try to better our image and continue serving the upper middle class as well.

The nightlife on St.Maarten

The nightlife on St.Maarten is for sure one of my favorite things about the island. We have one a really good nightlife here on St.Maarten. When you're here on vacation its fun to go to nightclubs, casino's and beach bars. St.Maarten has some really good nightclubs, casino's and beach bars. It is important to have something entertaining and fun for the tourists to do. St.Maarten has nightclubs on the Dutch as well as on the French side. On the Dutch side St.Maarten is popular for the night club Tantra, Bliss and 1eleven. How do these nightclubs attract the tourists? Every night these clubs have a different event. They bring dj's from all over the world. Not only dj's but dancers and performers. When these events are happening is it promoted big time on the island which makes it even more interesting. Bliss is a very well known club on St.Maarten is the only outdoor night club with a pool. Most tourists love it there because they have never experienced an outdoor club. Bliss does lots of promotion to promote their different events. Every night is a eventful night for the nightclubs. Not only does the nightclubs have good entertainment but also the Casino's. The Casino's are known for having special dancers which is good entertainment while your gambling. If you feel like just sitting at the beach with a drink then you should definitely check out Sunset beach bar, like the name says it’s a beach bar right in front of the sunset. The hotels always promote the night life on St.Maarten, they help with the marketing. Usually the marketing is done via radio, internet, brochures, magazines and the tourism bureau. The nightlife on St.Maarten is like no other.

White sand and blue seas.

One of the main reasons why tourists choose to come to our island is because of our beaches. If you look at the sites of St.Maarten and the magazines you'll see that the beaches a big topic is. On our 37 square mile island we have 37 beautiful beaches. We have so many beaches to choose from. It depends what kind of beach you are looking for. We have beaches with restaurants, beaches with all types of water sports, beaches that are safe for kids, beaches that are very private and a big deal, nude beaches. St.Maarten is one of the few places in the world that still has a natural beach (nude beach). This is a big deal for tourists because it's not allowed in a lot of countries and islands. A lot of tourists look for these natural beaches. This beach is a big deal for St.Maarten because it caters to a lot of our tourists especially the older tourists, which is important because of a lot of retired tourists need a place to go when their on pension and if they see that our island has this natural beach it will make choosing our island to vacation easier. It is important that we keep our beaches clean. There are many beach clean ups throughout the year that even tourists help! Our beaches don't really need to be promoted because this is the main thing the tourists come for, but if we do a little bit of promoting in those vacation brochures they will get a better idea of how nice are beaches are which can only be good for us. In my opinion promoting the beaches more would be a really good idea for our island. We have something good we should promote it!