by Brian Major
Last updated: 12:04 PM ET, Mon August 12, 2019
St. Maarten's overnight visitor arrivals are pacing far ahead of 2018 levels in the first six months of 2019, said St. Maarten Tourist Bureau officials. The destination's first-half 2019 land-based arrivals nearly match the total arrivals achieved in all of 2018, as the St. Maarten sought to recover from the impact of Hurricane Irma in the fall of 2017.
St. Maarten hosted 171,543 land-based visitors in the first half of 2019 compared with 177,589 visitors in all of 2018, said officials, who attribute the increase to "hotel re-openings in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019" along with "major airlines increasing service to the island."
In addition, "tour operators are also reporting strong numbers including quadruple-digit percentage growth in sales and room nights," officials said in a statement. The first-half 2019 arrivals include 92,285 visitors from the US and 15,683 Canadian arrivals, compared with 67,533 American and 9,162 Canadian visitors during the same period one year earlier.
The St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) is also reporting "strong hotel occupancy rates for the first six months" of 2019 with occupancy averaging 81.9 percent during the first quarter of 2019 and 71.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, said Tourist Bureau officials.
The improved visitor arrivals "highlight how much we have improved since Hurricane Irma and show the resilience of our people," said Stuart Johnson, St. Maarten's minister of tourism. "As St. Maarten continues to redevelop sustainably, we are excited that the visitor numbers remain on the increase."
St. Maarten's tourism and public infrastructure have made "great strides" since Hurricane Irma, said officials, as "more than 65 percent" of St. Maarten hotels and time-shares have re-opened.
Officials add that Princess Juliana International Airport "expects to be fully operational" by the first quarter of 2020. Major US carriers including Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, JetBlue and United Airlines "have all returned with regular service," and regular flights from Toronto and Montral on Air Canada, Sunwing, and Air Transat have also resumed.
"Everyone in the industry has been working tirelessly to ensure that our tourism sector recovers strong and to let visitors know that we're open for business," said May-Ling Chun, St. Maarten's director of tourism. "We're very pleased to see that our loyal visitors are now returning to the island in greater numbers."
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