Major economic benefits expected
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - WITH the official cruise season already underway, the St. Kitts Tourism Authority (SKTA) is expecting a bumper period over the next 10 to 11 months.
This comes as the SKITA is expecting over 300 cruise calls to the island during the November 2016 to the October 2017 season.
SKTA Public Relations Manager Saju N’Gala indicated to SKNVibes that some 391 calls are expected during that period, which speaks volume to the product that the Federation has on offer.
“This indicates that good things are being said about the island internationally. It indicates that people are saying the island is a must view destination when it comes to cruising in the Caribbean. Ships want to come to St. Kitts because we offer a wide variety of things to do.”
Over the past several weeks, St. Kitts had seen an influx of tourists as the two ports were all occupied with cruise vessels. The island saw as many as four ships on any given day and three on others.
“That means that at anytime we would have a minimum of two to three thousand visitors on the island. They are either going on tours, to the restaurants or visiting the retail shops, which mean that money is circulating in the economy,” noted N’Gala.
He explained that visitors are treated well and have an enhanced view of the twin-island paradise, and that it has resonated in the spending of the tourist dollar.
To this end, he noted that they are hopeful of break the one million cruise passenger mark, a similar target that was set for the last cruise season but was not attained because of several challenges.
“We hope to break the one million mark. We are looking at just under one million or just over the one million mark, but we can’t speak to how many passengers would be here at that time. Now and again you would have cruise ships cancelling, but we are definitely pushing for the million mark.”
N’Gala highlighted that this season is expected to be a record breaking one in which they would be seeing more passengers than ever.
Last year saw just over 900,000 passengers and that total is expected to be surpassed.
Against that backdrop, he was asked about the cancellation of ships and the absence of vessels on Christmas Day and other holidays, to which he indicated that “we didn’t have any scheduled for December 25 and so none would have pulled out. On Boxing Day, December 25, we have one coming”.
N’Gala pointed out that it has been a good season thus far and it is expected to get better in the coming months.
