Hotels on St.Maarten

A lot of people go to St.Maarten on vacation and of course these tourists need a place to stay. St.Maarten offers them so much from beach houses, to hotels and villas. We have more than 12 hotels on St.Maarten. We have hotels on the beach and hotels that are in the middle of the town, hotels that are from civilization and hotels that are in the middle of restaurants and clubs. The island has so many different things to offer. How to these hotels market their self to the tourist? Well these hotels have representatives that go out and promote the hotel. There are also these St.Maarten vacation magazines that you often find at book stores or airports that has all the hotels in it. The St.Maarten tourism bureau also promotes the hotels on St.Maarten. It is important that the hotels are as good as they are expected to be. The hotel service must be up to par to. I find it important for a hotel to promote itself to the rest of the countries because if the hotel looks attractive the tourist they will easier decide to come on vacation here. We should promote the hotels as much as possible to make finding a place to stay easier for the tourist and make sure that checking in goes quick and easy. St.Maarten is an island this is only focused on tourism so these are things we need to make sure we do.

Heineken Regatta

This is one of the biggest events on St.Maarten. This is an event were a lot of people from Holland come to. Heineken Regatta is a sailing race sponsored by Heineken. This event is a big marketing instrument that attracts lots of tourists from all over but mostly Holland. Its a sailing race around the island of about 250 participants. Its goes on for about 4 days. But after everyday there is a party with performers such as the popular singing group the black eyed peas. The events consists of 4 eventful days of sailing in the day and partying in the night. This event attracts so many people. This year with be the 30th anniversary of Heineken Regatta on St.Maarten. St.Maarten is one of the few places in the world that has such a big event for sailing. A lot of people from Holland come to participate in the race not only from Holland but from the United States too. This is a good time for our tourism because a lot of people come to St.Maarten and stay in hotels. Heineken Regatta does a lot of promotional merchandising by having shirts, pants, beer holders, hats, chains, light up stuff and much more with Heineken Regatta on it. Heineken makes a lot of money from this Regatta but not only does Heineken gain from it but so does the island. It promotes are island, people hear about St.Maarten because of this big event. Heineken gets a lot of sponsors from other companies, we should continue to support Heineken with this event because it does a lot for our island.

Is St.Maarten loosing it's culture?

If you were to ask the people of St.Maarten what exactly our culture is no one is quite sure. That’s because through the years we are slowly loosing our culture. If the people of St.Maarten don’t know what our culture is how will St.Maarten market its culture. If we have no culture there won’t be anything unique for those who are vacationing on St.Maarten to see. We have to do as much as we can to keep the culture of St.Maarten. The most of St.Maarten’s culture has been influenced by Africa and Europe. We’re a small island divided by two nationalities; our culture should be really strong as easy to see. Don’t get me wrong our culture is still there but we’re slowly loosing that island flavor. If you look around St.Maarten it’s filled with big buildings and malls. Our main tourism income comes from The United States and Canada. The Americans have all those things already, big buildings, huge shopping malls etc, and they don’t want to come on vacation to our island to see the same things. They want to experience the island life such as the markets. Our island is very popular for the markets. They also want to experience the beaches, forts, carnival and let me not forget the guava berry, our island drink. If we continue to Americanize our island we will loose the island image that we have so even though we our improving our island we just have to make sure to keep our culture, the culture all tourist travel to St.Maarten to experience.

Who markets St.Maarten?

For an island that main income is tourism it is important how it markets itself to the rest of the world. St.Maarten needs to
make sure they always have a positive image for tourist to continue choosing st.maarten as their destination for vacation.
They can market the island many different ways with different marketing ethics. The organization that is responsible for
promoting St.Maarten is the St.Maarten tourist bureau. The St.Maarten tourist bureau mainly concentrates on promoting St.Maarten around the world. They travel the other countries just to promote and make the island known. If they don’t go out and promote our island people would never hear of our tiny island that is almost never shown on the map. I spent a day at the tourist bureau for an assignment for school so I got an inside look of what really goes on in the bureau. They are constantly busy with planning events, making folders and brochures about St.Maarten to give out at hotels, airports etc. , making presentations to give at other countries and keeping in contact with other tourist bureaus in the Caribbean and around the world. They do a lot of there marketing via advertising, channel marketing, internet marketing, promotion and public relations. St.Maarten also has tourist bureaus around the world, in places such as Canada, Brazil, Italy, the U.S and many more. St.Maarten mainly bases is promotion on clients that our ready to travel but they also always are trying to get new potential clients. Besides getting new potential clients/tourist they also need to keep in contact with tourists that have already come to the island and try to influence them to come again by keeping them updated with new things on the islands such as clubs, restaurants and hotels. If St.Maarten doesn’t continue promoting itself we could loose our image as #1 vacation island in the Caribbean and #3 in the world and we definitely don’t want that!

A little bit about St.Maarten

Christopher Columbus discovered St.Maarten on November 11th 1493. St.Maarten is in the Caribbean and is part of the Netherlands Antilles. It is 37 square miles. St.Maarten consists of the French side (21 square miles) and the Dutch side (16 square miles). St.Maarten is the smallest island to be shared by two governments. Although St.Maarten may be a small island it consists of over 140 different nationalities. The official languages of St.Maarten are Dutch and French though you will hear many other languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese, Papimanetu, Creole and lots more. There is about 80,000 people living on the island of St.Maarten. The main income of St.Maarten is based on tourism, that is why it is important for our island to provide our tourists with nothing but the best. It is our job to market our island in a positive way and make sure that we live up to the high expectations. St.Maarten was voted #1 in the Caribbean and #3 in the world in the 2008 Travelers Choice Destination awards. To maintain such a title it is important that we market our island in the best ways possible. Because tourism is our main income it is important to maintain good service, a clean island and a safe environment for our tourists at all times. It must be tourist friendly, and it's important that St.Maarten remains a tiny island paradise with an intriguing mix of cultures and cuisine thanks to its dual Dutch/French heritage that it's known for.