TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin SXM tourism numbers less than before Irma

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Surprising to me that stayover tourism for 2023 was still 25% less than 2016.

You would never think so, judging on the traffic conditions lately.

On a beach day the parking lots are full by 1 PM on Orient, they dug out for a 4th line of chairs @ Club O which is usually filled by 11 AM. Restaurant area in the village is very busy at night maybe more so than pre Irma. See a lot of taxies dropping off people for dinner here so I think they are getting some of the Grand Case business

I rather wonder how many people are affected by the conditions at the airport. I mean, if I didn't know about the island and came here with the airport in its current condition I don't know that I would come back.

Sounds like high season has been very good, but when we were on the island last July, it was by far the slowest we have ever seen during the summer. We only made dinner reservations once in three weeks which was at Spiga when we had a group of 6. There were probably only 8-10 others in the restaurant the whole time we were there. We ate at every restaurant in the village at least once and never had to make a reservation. We walked Orient beach end to end numerous times and were truly surprised by how few people were there. The few times we ventured to the Dutch side(no cruise ship days), it was the same...had lunch at Mary's Boon one day and we were the only people there and one couple at the beach chairs. What we experienced was far greater than 25% fewer visitors compared to what we experienced prior to Irma. We haven't been to the island during high season since before Irma as we determined that for us, the added cost and congestion were just not worth it.

Southbound--we have only rarely gone to SXM in high season, other than several years for Regatta. We haven't been during high season since Irma, for sure, and the crowds have been light, as you say, during low season.

Airport chaos and the cost of flights may be impactful. Anecdotally, I know two couples from the Boston area who switched their vacation plans from SXM to Aruba. I don't understand why the longer flights to Aruba should be so much cheaper than the shorter flights to SXM. But after paying more, you're then faced with a third-world arrival experience.

The only issue that I found with Aruba was the cluster frick of trying to get a chair/umbrella either on the beach or by the pool. We stayed at multiple Marriott properties and a few other t/S exchanges. They also were a tad busy with WAY too many people...

This November we had rented our own two BR condo for the first time across the street from Eagle beach and it was fantastic...problems removed. Aruba felt safer with zero scooters zipping by...NO traffic issues since most everyone just goes to their resort and hangs out. Decent beaches, some huge and some isolated. ...Restaurants are decent and we have our few favotite on the water ..Non high end restaurant prices are a bit higher than SXM and beer is twice the cost.

But...with that said, we still love SXM but will also do the condo thing in Aruba again

I suspect the supply side of the supply and demand equation weighs heavily on those Aruba flights. They’re running between 3 and 5 daily nonstop flights from BOS to AUA. Compare that to the one nonstop they run on Saturday to SXM.

I have no idea where they get those numbers!! When we were there in oct into nov. There were a few times we had to turn around because the traffic was SO BAD on Airport road day and night!!!

For what it is worth, I think the numbers used for this report are based on those staying in hotels where, indeed, occupancy is down from pre-Irma days. The various hotel general managers who I am friendly with, however, all cite AirBnB, VRBO and others as the reasons that their occupancy rates are down. Considering how many listings for accommodations appear on those sites, this could well be the case.

I could be wrong, often am, but I would have thought the numbers would be based on people who arrived at the airport or elsewhere and went through immigration (as opposed to those in transit). That makes NO sense that the number of stayover visitors would not include those staying at places through VRBO, etc. I agree that VRBO, etc., is a huge number of people. Irma did take out several hotels/timeshares, yes, like the Westin, the Sonesta Great Bay, the Summit, the Towers and the Ocean Club, off the top of my head. That is a fair number of people. I would not be surprised if at least some people who owned at the Towers/ Summit/Ocean Club/etc, would be totally disenchanted with SXM and choose to go elsewhere afterward.

I doubt VRBo reports, anyone that owns a condo or house doesn’t report - numbers should be from the airport - remove “transient” flyers. Heck they ask where you are staying - so why wouldn’t those be the numbers of how many are actually staying on the island.

Kim--I can't tell, are you agreeing with me?