St. Maarten Private Eye

I read somewhere a few weeks ago that SXM should attract more High end visitors .
I guess Jet Blue will be of great help .............................one is always on the high end of something.

It is interesting that you should mention this notion of "high end tourism" that keeps popping up. Most other tourist destinations are happy to get any kind of foreign money spent on their destinations. St Martin/St Maarten wants the high end tourism. On what merits?

I often think about this when I drive from Marigot to Simpson Bay through Cole Bay. The road gets narrower and crappier, the suage smell after the rain gets more intense. I look at the buildings coming out from Cole Bay driving towards Wellfare Road. I often think to myself: "high end tourism, I am sure the rich and famous would love this".

One has to remember that we can't lock up the high end tourists at their resorts and blind fold them on their way to the airport. They see exactly what we see, and I am sorry to say, St Martin/St Maarten aint no St Tropez.

That's exactly what I mean. To be able to sell a product you must first have it. Our high class product was given away longtime ago .Claude Wathey opted for mass tourism and we were very successful at it. We have no other choice now but to continue in that direction. Anguilla and St.Barth chose the hi-end style and they are doing great with it. What we have to work on now is keeping our customers. Too many of them are fed up with the filth , the traffic, the crime ,the unfriendly immigration at the airport etc.......etc.....and what do we do to improve our product ?
We are going project crazy. As I say jokingly somethimes, the southern part of the Island is going to sink .It won't no longer be able to carry all the concrete, steel, cars, trucks, that is pouring in now on us. Let us fix what we have now .Optimize the benefit of what is already here then ,when our infrastructure is ready , see about the possibility of new developments.

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

I want to say first that Jet Blue is an outstanding airline and the European Aircraft the Airbus 320 is a technologically advanced airplane, it is unfortunate as to what happened with that flight, however the older American Airlines planes seem to hold up, ie; Boeing.

Well here is my two cents if it is worth anything to anyone. Yes, the service that I received on American Eagle was horrible and I will agree that the flight attendants are quite rude, perhaps it must be a Puerto Rican thing, assuming since they are PR based flight crew. I also received the same warm welcome on my flight from SJU to MIA.... I can probably chalk that up as an overworked flight crew, although they tend to all sit down in the back of the plane and do nothing but talk about what they did the night prior or on my particular flight who was selling gift wraps, probably for their children.... I should have empathy, but I was thirsty !

My trip to SXM was great with a few exceptions, as an executive that travels in the US frequently, I have to say that PJIA is one of the nicest airports I have seen in a while, however there is not much activity about island actiivties "things to do" or maybe I just walked by and did not notice the counter or display. I heard in the Daily Herald that the French side is suffering due to lack of Tourism. I found my week long activities were on the French side while I lodged on the Dutch side. I am a little perplexed on this..... here you have a multi-million dollar "world class airport" but the surrounding areas on the dutch side, and I want to say this politically correct, seem to be old and run down!

As far as my next trip, I am taking my two daughters with me back to St.Maarten, I would like to fly the low cost carriers, however the pricing is about $50.00 more per person from my point of departure. And unfortunately American has the best deal.

I just wish the Dutch were'nt so cheap and pump a little money to "clean up" the area. I think "high end tourism" will come, once the local tourist areas are cleaned up, however I think there is a huge investment on the island that needs to see returns before any more money is spent and that is PJIA !

Frankly, I like it quiet and cozy, we will see how it is in June when I return for a month.

Oh, and to stick to the point of this blog. Sometimes "High End Traveller's" fly on low cost carriers ! Besides the way the economy is heading in the US, most of these traveller's if travelling will want low cost airfares.