St Kitts tourism focus
St Kitts new Tourism Minister Lindsay Grant speaks to TravelMole about the island’s tourism development.
Cruises:
Seen as the curse of some Caribbean islands, cruise has long been a factor in the local tourism mix here on St Kitts, but according to the new man it is something that will be not be allowed to grow out of control. "The number of cruise passengers we have arriving at present is one million and we see it levelling out at around 1.4 million. We are building a new pier that will allow three ships at a time in Basseterre and in an ideal world we would like to attract the smaller but more exclusive cruise lines to fill that extra capacity."
Hotels:
In recent years, St Kitts has benefited from a ‘citizenship’ programme, whereby individuals can make a minimum US$400,000 investment in the island and in return become a citizen. This, however, will come under closer scrutiny by the new government, which has just begun a five-year term. "On an island that suffers from a shortage of hotel beds we cannot allow investors to buy condominiums that lay empty for the majority of the time. This is not right and in the future this is one change we will put in place as we ensure that citizenship money assists projects that will result in more bed spaces for the island."
Kittian Hill
Sport:
Sport will be a key area of development and promotion for tourism officials. St Kitts has just hosted a major track and field event, the 44th CARIFTA games, at the newly-named Kim Collins arena, named after the island’s most famous and successful athlete. Athletes from all over the region came to compete in the four-day meet. Such was the prestige of the event that Lord Coe and Sergei Bubka were present, jockeying for IAAF presidential votes where the Caribbean delegation has such a large share. At the same time the England cricket team came to town to play four days of friendly cricket prior to the test series against the West Indies. The result of these two events, plus the annual local inter island swim, meant that very few if any beds were left lying empty on the island.
Christophe Harbour Marina (view from Salt Plage)
Heritage:
Heritage in St Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis will also be a strong focus for marketing under the new government. The site of the original British landing in the region over 400 years ago, evidence of this remains today. Once called the capital of the Caribbean, St Kitts was fought for at various times between the French and the British resulting in a mix of place names, customs and food.
"I am not sure that our visitors know of our fascinating past and the influence we had over the rest of the region. Brimstone Hill, being a UNESCO site, is just one of many examples of our heritage and we intend to emphasise this more and more in our marketing."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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