St. Maarten remains the main gateway to St. Barths
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. Other passengers came in from San Juan (17.94%) and Grand Case (13.15%).
Princess Juliana remains the main gateway to St. Barth with 58.98 percent of all passengers in 2023 and 61.52 percent in 2024.
Winair plays a prominent role in this traffic, because it catered to 45 percent of passenger traffic to St. Barths, while SXM Airways contributed a more than modest but stable 3 percent. In 2024 Winair introduced daytrips to St. Barth for just $99.
Observatoire du Tourisme is a report from the Tourism Bureau in St. Barths and it comes with an introduction by its president Alexandra Questel. The report is detailed and offers a ton of information about the whole spectrum of tourism-related issues.
Visitors also arrive via the port of Gustavia; in 2023 it welcomed 347,572 arrivals, beating the pre-pandemic level of 2019 (342,901). St. Maarten-based The Edge, an initiative of Aquamania Adventures offered daytrips to St. Barths three times a week, leaving at 9 a.m. and returning at 4 p.m.
The island furthermore saw a strong increase of cruise arrivals to 80,532 and 157 ports of call. The cruise ships that sail to St. Barths are more intimate that the juggernauts that frequent St. Maarten. The ships carry not more than 500 passengers and the average is 200 to 300 passengers.
Like St. Maarten, St. Barths also heavily relies on visitors from the Unites States; they represent 55.8 percent from all arrivals, followed by France (15.9%) and the rest of Europe (12.6%).
Thirty percent of American visitors hail from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Most visitors (37.5%) stay for 6 to 10 days on the island; 30.5% stay less than five days and 19.4 percent stay 15 days or longer. Most of them stay in villas (45.3%), while others opt for hotels (32%), staying with friends or family (16%) or book through AirBnb (6.6%).
The large majority of visitors (90.9 %) are satisfied with their St. Barths-experience, while 82.2 percent describe it as excellent.
According to the report, hotels are conscious of the environment; they cut down on the use of plastic, focus on sustainable energy and use rain water and gray water for irrigation purposes and flushing toilets.
There are 26 hotels, residences and guestrooms with a total of 536 rooms. The report presents a complete overview of the island’s luxury hotels and independent hotels. The occupation rate of the rooms was 64.6% in the 2023-2024 season and 68.1 percent in the previous season.
During the low season there is an increase in the private use of accommodations for events like marriages and birthdays. Hotel owners have criticized Princess Juliana International Airport for countless delays and for the lack of true VIP-services.
Staying on St. Barths is not cheap: during the high season prices vary from €1,700 tot €12,000 per night.
The island government benefits from its luxury-hungry visitors. Imports of luxury articles amounted to €75 million in 2023 (among them: €34.7 million for watches, €19 million for jewelry and €8 million for clothing). These imports generated €3.85 million in taxes. On top, the government collected the 5 percent room tax in 2023 for a total of more than €15.6 million.
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