St. Maarten’s tourism officials are playing a dangerous numbers game. The island’s leadership has touted rosy visitor figures while failing to provide credible, transparent data. This mismanagement of tourism statistics isn’t just an embarrassment—it’s a threat to our economic future. When our neighbors openly share thorough reports and we respond with a clumsy spreadsheet and PR spin, investors and airlines take note. It’s high time we call out this farce, contrast it with how others do it right, and demand an urgent fix. A Tale of Two Islands: St. Barths vs. St. Maarten Data Transparency St. Barths is schooling St.…
Author: The Publisher
PHILIPSBURG — Compared to 2023, cruise and stay-over arrivals increased in 2024 by 16.5 percent, according to data release by STAT, the department of statistics. Last year, 511,339 travelers arrived either by air or on a cruise ship, compared to 438,748 in 2023. This seems to be good news for the local tourism-related industries. The month of September marks the bottom of the low season, even more so in 2024 than in the previous year. In 2023 there were 22,264 arrivals and in 2024 just 19,606, a dip of 11.9 percent. On the other end of the scale December remains…
PHILIPSBURG — Curacao-based airline Z Air obtained a positive court ruling about its conflict with the government of St. Maarten this month. The court ruled that St Maarten’s Civil Aviation Authority’s (SMCAA) demand that Z Air submit a letter signed by the American Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) that outlines the responsibilities about the maintenance of its five-plane fleet does not make sense and that it cannot be made a condition for a permit to fly to St. Maarten. The government has “insufficiently made clear and insufficiently substantiated that this letter is necessary to guarantee safe flights,” the court ruled. On…
WILLEMSTAD — Former President if the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten (CBCS) Dr. Emsley Tromp and the bank’s former secretary-director Jerry Hasselmeyer have been ordered to repay the central bank more than 2.5 million guilders by the Court in First Instance in Curacao. Tromp has to repay 2,203,890 guilders ($1,231,223) while the court hit Hasselmeyer with an order to repay 380,900 guilders ($212,793) to the central bank. The ruling has immediate effect and does not affect a possible appeal against the verdicts. Tromp was president of the CBCS from 1991 until 2017, when he was fired after accusations…
There is something both impressive and frustrating about looking at the latest 2023-2024 Observatoire du Tourisme report from St. Barths. While our neighboring island has released an in-depth, data-driven analysis of its tourism sector, St. Maarten remains silent, unable to even provide basic fourth-quarter statistics for 2024. The difference is staggering. In St. Barths, tourism authorities offer comprehensive insights into visitor origins, flight connections, hotel occupancy, and even spending trends. They can pinpoint which U.S. states send the most tourists, how travelers arrive, and where they prefer to stay. This level of transparency allows for smarter policymaking, targeted marketing, and…
PHILIPSBURG — The hub function of Princess Juliana International Airport may be under pressure due to competition from neighboring islands, but it still remains the launchpad for trips to the island if St. Barthélemy. This appears from the Observatoire du Tourisme, a detailed 59-page report about the state of tourism on St. Barths. In 2023, the St. Barths Airport Remy de Haenen received 203,754 arrivals and 58.98 percent of them came in through the Princess Juliana International SXM Airport of St. Maarten. The arrivals-number shows a decline compared to 2022 (6.9%), but it stands 10.5% above 2019, the pre-pandemic year.…
PHILIPSBURG/GUSTAVIA — As the Caribavia 2025 Aviation Conference & Retreat, scheduled for June 10-12, 2025, in St. Barths, prepares to welcome aviation and tourism industry leaders, a key focus will be on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its transformative role in air travel and tourism. The announcement that Raéd Alexander Ayyad, an expert in AI-driven innovation and former Senior IT Project Manager at Southwest Airlines and CITI Bank Group, will deliver a keynote on AI’s impact in aviation and tourism is particularly timely as AirStMaarten advances its plans for AI-powered travel solutions through its next-generation booking system—AirSXM 3.0. For years, AirStMaarten…
A recent article published by The People’s Tribune, “St. Maarten’s diminishing regional hub role, Minister’s presence at Routes has added significance,” highlights an urgent and growing challenge for St. Maarten’s aviation sector. The island’s long-standing dominance as a regional hub for neighboring islands like Anguilla, Nevis, Tortola, and Dominica is eroding, primarily due to the rise of direct flights from the U.S. to these destinations and their investments in airport infrastructure. A reader recently shared a compelling commentary with me on this matter, arguing that SXM’s loss of hub status was inevitable given its prolonged reconstruction period post-Hurricane Irma and…
PHILIPSBURG — The National Payment Council (NPC), a platform for payment system policy dialogue focused in its second meeting in St. Maarten on ways to reduce bank card transaction fees. The NPC is chaired by the Central Bank of Curacao and St. Maarten (CBCS). It notes that due to the use of Master en Visa cards, payments at local stores are not always processed as local transactions. This results in higher fees. The CBCS says that it is essential to create a uniform configuration of payment equipment (like point-of-sale machines) and ATMs. Participants in the NPC are, apart from the…
By Hilbert Haar Why anybody would break the law by buying votes in an attempt to capture a coveted seat in St. Maarten’s parliament is not a great mystery. Those seats are worth a lot of money, because MPs receive roughly $10,000 per month during their tenure. If they keep their seat for a full term of four years this means that they are looking at an income of $480,000. This simple fact explains why aspiring politicians try again and again to buy their way into parliament. In the past, those who were caught for buying votes received relatively light…
