Basseterre, St. Kitts (SKNIS): Minister of Tourism, the Honorable Marsha Henderson said that the Ministry of Tourism has made significant achievements in only one year.
Speaking at the National Town Hall meeting on the eve of the government’s one-year anniversary, Minister Henderson said, “When I became the Minister, we had clear objectives of what we wanted to do with the product and so we got in and we launched a new campaign.”
She said that there were three initiatives her ministry set out to achieve in the first year.
The first she said was to increase airlifts to the destination.
“That means if you have a product and you are selling it somewhere, we want people to come here and for people to come here, we need to have lifts and so we wanted to increase flights,” she said.
The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis witnessed three inaugural flights over the past four months, namely, Jet Blue, Caribbean Airlines and InterCaribbean Airlines.
Minister Henderson also stated that the government wanted to increase its room stock because she says, “airlifts depend on the number of rooms you have.”
She also added that her ministry saw the need to diversify the offerings of the Federation as a destination.
“We were of the view that the product was stale because we are not only selling for ourselves, but we are competing with several destinations such as Antigua, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, and other destinations that are out there,” Minister Henderson said.
The minister added that her team saw the need to diversify the portfolio of the Federation as a destination that was an alternative to sea, sun and sand because “you can get that in Jamaica and Bahamas.”
She said because of this the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis had to diversify its offerings and services by creating the ‘Venture Deeper’ campaign.