St. Maarten Private Eye

The Daily Herald brought up the "high end" issue in today's followup on the JetBlue story:

Quelling fears that a low-cost flight might bring budget travellers rather than the high end ones, the partners said the profile of US travellers, taking into consideration the new passport regulations, was middle class.

Quelling fears? How come fine European cities like Paris and Barcelona welcome budget travellers and backpackers, but not St Maarten? (St Maarten - where big parts of the island looks like a dump and grey water is overflowing on the roads.)

Barcelona has excellent tourist information centers with up to date info regarding affordable youth hostels, for example. Do you think the city of Barcelona does this to be nice? I think not. I think they have realised a long time ago that this segment of the tourism sector is a very important for the local economy.

I have a gut feeling that budget travellers can stimulate the local economy more than high end tourism because, if St Maarten had any, they would stay at local guest houses and eat at local places, whereas the high end resorts are owned and run by foreign hotel chains and the profits ends up in foreign countries.

All inclusive resorts like some of the neighboring island may create a few cleaning jobs for the local population but the big bucks go elsewhere. Budget travellers could be more environmental too because they would use public transport to a greater extent rather than renting cars and clogging up the roads, like the "high end" tourists.

Thailand and Israel are also seem to be taking their budget tourists seriously.

Drive from Simpson Bay over the hill along Pondfill Road towards Philipsburg, take a deep breath and smell it, and ask yourself seriously if you think that St Maarten is ready for high end tourism?

Partnership gets credit for daily JetBlue flight