PHLIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — The office of Minister Raphael Boasman on Thursday acknowledged that vacationstmaarten.com is currently offline, a situation the Minister recently met after taking office.
Initial inquiries by the office of the Minister to the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau indicates that the central problem is one of outstanding funds pending for the marketing firm in charge of maintaining the site.
As soon as the cabinet of the Minister was made aware of the situation this week, efforts commenced to address the situation post haste, includingacquiring a detailed explanation about how the situation got to this point.
At the moment it is premature to discuss or divulge how the situation will be addressed, but the public can be assured that it is of utmost priority and steps will be taken to ensure there isn’t a re-occurrence with any of the country’s marketing firms.
Proper marketing of the destination in collaboration with partners and stakeholders is a priority for the administration and everything will be done to ensure that our marketing vehicles are well supported by government in a timely manner.
A report will be compiled regarding this incident and presented to the Council of Ministers and Parliament.
Source: 721 News https://721news.com/top-story/promotional-website-offline-situation-addressed/
Total BS. Now you are spending even MORE money to investigate what happened. Just pay the bill. Just in case those in power are really out of touch with our lives, this “high season” is pretty dismal. St Maarten should be booming but we are not addressing the basics: pot holes, places for people to walk down the road etc etc.
Why are they surprised? They know very well they have taken advantage of the vendor and not paid him in months, in the meantime none of the will ever work if they were not paid their salaries. Partnership is a 2 way street if you do not pay your oartner why should he continue to promote our destination? Sxm pay up or shut up but as always reactionary marketing is the name of the game. Almost 5 months and no TEATT minister this is how much we care about our most important portfolio. Why arent our parlamentarians raising hell about this were is the oppositio, o I forgot collecting 10k per month to keep their mouths shot.