TEATT Minister Johnson giving opening remarks at the workshop.
PHILIPSBURG–Globally recognised and leading travel booking websites TripAdvisor and Expedia led presentations in a full-day workshop on global market trends on August 27, which was attended by some of the island’s private sector travel and tourism stakeholders.
This event was organised by the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) and spearheaded by St. Maarten Tourist Bureau (STB).
During the workshop, the travel companies presented the latest market trends and new opportunities to position St. Maarten’s tourism products and services in North America.
TEATT Minister Stuart Johnson gave the opening remarks and welcomed the attendees. Johnson said on Sunday these initiatives continue to yield significant fruit in attracting new visitors and securing the return of long-time vacationers.
He said St. Maarten would take full advantage of opportunities to collaborate with its international partners on destination marketing initiatives “as we continue to position our island as the number one travel destination.”
The discussions and presentations were led by TripAdvisor’s Senior Destination Marketing Manager Carol Johnson and Expedia’s Business Development Manager for the Caribbean region, Ana Medina. In addition to presenting the latest trends and new opportunities, Carol and Medina also reviewed the campaigns that St. Maarten ran with their respective platforms in 2016, 2017 and 2019.
St. Maarten recently launched an extensive marketing campaign with TripAdvisor and Expedia in the United States (US) that aims to get the message across to consumers that the island is open for business. It also seeks to show the diversity of St. Maarten’s product offering and drive bookings to the destination. The campaign will end on December 31.
The US is St. Maarten’s top source market. Between January and June of this year, St. Maarten welcomed 92,285 visitors from the US, a steady increase over the 67,533 Americans who visited the island during the same period in 2018. This shows strong recovery from the hurricanes, according to a TEATT press release.
“We are committed to having both public and private sectors work closely together in marketing St. Maarten as a leading Caribbean destination, and to helping the private sector find new opportunities to further develop the island’s tourism industry,” said Minister Johnson.
“We are working in close cooperation with all of our industry partners to ensure the strong and sustainable recovery of the tourism sector on the island, and look forward to creating more opportunities for local partners to promote our island’s diverse tourism products,” said St. Maarten’s Director of Tourism May-Ling Chun.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/90541-stb-hosts-workshop-with-tripadvisor-expedia
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