Saint Lucia destined to be top tourist destination for 2010
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Contact: Shannon Lebourne
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 – With the global economic slowdown beginning to bottom out, Saint Lucia's tourism industry is expected to significantly add value to the local economy in 2010.
Director of the Saint Lucia Tourist Board (SLTB), Louis Lewis, says after performing much better than expected last year, the local tourism industry this year, is well poised to grow.
He says this is as a result of effective and strategic marketing campaigns, along with increased airlift to the destination.
“We have negotiated sufficient airlift for the destination and overall the airlift capacity has improved by over forty [percent. If we apply that trend in terms of performance, we expect that 2010 will be one of our best years. To date, our best year has been 2005 and we anticipate that by the end of 2010, we will be able to surpass those numbers,” Lewis said.
Fresh from the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association's Annual Marketplace and Trade Show in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the tourist board's director says Saint Lucia remains among the top travel destinations in the Caribbean.
The tourist board's new vice president of marketing, Nerdin St. Rose, says her main goal is to make Saint Lucia one of the world's leading leisure destinations.
“One of the big things for me is to create a team that is more integrated—where more synergies exist and we improve communications. We are going to look at what has worked in the past and improve on it, because it's all about being a whole lot more efficient and being able to measure every cent that we spend going forward.”
Tourism remains Saint Lucia's leading economic driver, contributing at least 64 percent to the country's GDP, according to a recent report conducted in association with the statistics department.
The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) says after falling by an estimated four percent last year, global tourism will recover, to grow by three to four percent in 2010. |
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