The Daily Herald
July 13, 2001
PHILIPSBURG, ST. MAARTEN -- Tourism officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the current hurricane season
remains uneventful as storms could ruin St. Maarten's tourism industry. The island is going through an extremely
slow low-season with mainly cruise tourists and time-share-owners, but the expectations are that the next high
season will be much better, provided there are no hurricanes. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed," Commissioner
Theo Heyliger told The Daily Herald on Wednesday.
According to SHTA Project Coordinator Jelle Hamstra, bookings for next season are hopeful. "From what we've
heard from the majority of hoteliers, it looks as if we're heading for a much better season than we have had in
previous years," he said.
According to figures Hamstra provided over the first six months of 2001, 44.15 per cent of hotel and timeshare
rooms were occupied in June and 50.70 per cent in May. "But it's difficult to compare to previous years. You
must keep in mind that after Hurricane Lenny a great many rooms were out of commission. Maho was out and so were
The Caravanserai (formerly Millennium) and Royal Islander," he said. Therefore the 2000 figures, which state
that 61 per cent of the rooms were occupied in May and 58 in June, are a bit misleading.
"I think that now that we have Maho, Royal Islander and Caravanserai back on line, we're back at 80 per cent
of the inventory we had after Hurricane Luis in 1995," Hamstra said. He theorized that after Hurricane Luis
put flagship hotel Mullet Bay and Dawn Beach Hotel out of business permanently, St. Maarten's inventory was cut
to 80 per cent. The closure of Maho, Great Bay Beach, Divi Little Bay and The Caravanserai after Hurricane Lenny
in November 1999, slashed the available inventory to 60 per cent.
Hamstra speculated that St. Maarten most likely had the same number of visitors this year, as in 2000. "And
we're lucky to have the faithful timeshare visitors. Having to pay extra fees to transfer their ownership to other
destinations doesn't always sound attractive, so they came and played an important role in our economy. And luckily,
we had the cruise ship passengers too, of course," he said.
The occupancy figures indicate that 74.42 per cent of timeshare units were in use in May and 71.57 in June, whereas
29.62 per cent of the hotel rooms were occupied in May and 27.40 in June.
Forecasts for July, August and September are unstable. In July hotels could have 29.67 occupancy, in August 29.37
and in September 21.37. Timeshare resorts could see an 80.07 occupancy in July, 77.43 in August and 66.10 in September.
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