St. Maarten Tourist Bureau

Summary: The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau is probably the busiest office on St. Maarten with its total arrivals, including local and those from other islands is estimated 504,519.

The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau is probably the busiest office on St. Maarten. With an estimated total of 25.54 million visitors for all Caribbean destinations in 1996, it sure is the busiest tourist destination all over the world. The tourist breakdown would be 14.84 million tourist arrivals and 10.7 million passenger visits aboard cruise ships that docked constantly on Caribbean ports.

And that was 1996. In the succeeding years, an estimated 5% increase in tourist was noted and with all these tourist activity expending an estimated $15 million annually. Even diving, only another feature among a number of popular water activities typical to any Caribbean destination has been estimated to earn $1.2 billion last year of 2005.

Old favorites like Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Aruba, Barbados and Jamaica expectedly should be the biggest factor for visits in the Caribbean. Still, other Caribbean islands have started to gain reputation as great and alternative choices for those weary old favorites. Like St. Maarten.

In fact, the 2003 St. Maarten Tourist Bureau survey showed that there are 427,587 visitors on St. Maarten, and 251,792 of the visitors are Americans. The next on the list are European visitors that totaled around 88,259 and even 39,913 Caribbean residents visited St. Maarten. The total arrivals, including local residents, those from other islands of the Netherlands Antilles would total 504,519.

The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau has listed the total expenditure of its tourism and other related economic statistics around $538 million USD. And the tourism budget as filed by the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau? It is around $5 million USD.

Though St. Maarten had been experiencing a slight decline in its visitors, it is due to the diminishing interest of Americans heading towards the island. While some did include St. Maarten in the itinerary, there are quite a few islands along the Caribbean that could offer s\similar experiences, resulting in the cancellation altogether. Still, it is made up with a more favorable European visits, especially to French and Dutch nationals. Indeed, it has been pointed out that while there was a decrease in vacationers, the amount of folks that made their way to St. Maarten are mostly long time vacationers and pensioners who'd rather spend quiet holidays on the countryside and cafés than on beaches and snazzy nightclubs.

It is evident as more timeshares have emerged on St. Maarten. So did the number of private villas with their own pool and private gardens. similarly did real estates been put up for sale and long term rent than on short term vacations.