St. Kitts has superior customer service, survey finds
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
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| Queen Mary 2 (left) and Carnival Destiny berth at Port Zante (Photo by Ornella Halliday) |
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts- AFTER polling over 3,000 tourists at Port Zante and Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw International Airport from February 15th to March 13th, representatives of the St. Kitts & Nevis Hotel and Tourism Association (HTA) found that more 93% of the people said they would like to return to St. Kitts in the future.
HTA manager, Michael Head explained that 1842 persons departing the island via air and 1214 visitors departing via sea were asked, on a scale of 1 to 5, if they enjoyed their visit to St. Kitts and said that an astounding 82% gave the country the highest marks possible. The survey also revealed that 78% of departing airline passengers said that St. Kitts had met their expectations while a minimal percentage gave it the lowest rating.
"The message is clear - we're doing an excellent job in just about all the major areas that impact on tourism, but we still have to aim to do even better, the competition out there's tough, we're up against islands like Barbados, Antigua, Puerto Rico and St. Lucia when it comes to attracting tourists.
We have to keep them happy and keeping them coming back. We're competing in the major leagues, and I think the response to this survey proves this is where we belong," he said. ~~Adz:Right~~
Also notable on the survey was that almost 94% of those who visited St. Kitts by air travel said they would recommend the destination to their friends, while only a miniscule amount of people (1.41%) said they wished they had received better customer service at the airport.
St. Kitts did have a few small areas for improvement despite the otherwise glowing reviews. Seven percent of people said they could have received better customer service at their hotel and at restaurants, and an even smaller percentage of people said that the road conditions in St. Kitts could have been better. The main complaint among visitors arriving on cruise vessels was that there was not enough local cuisine available at Port Zante.
The Carnival Destiny and Queen Mary 2 brought a majority of the cruise passengers to the Federation during the one month period, spending an average of US $111.44 per person.
