The St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) and the St. Maarten Hospitality & Trade Association (SHTA) met on Tuesday, November 16 to exchange ideas for the further development of Carnival as a promotional tool and economic/tourism generator for the island.
President of the SCDF Stuart Johnson was joined by Treasurer of the foundation Erno Labega and described the meeting as fruitful with a number of key issues being discussed.
"The SHTA should naturally be a partner for St. Maarten’s Carnival considering the objectives and goals of the association. We feel that the relationship with the SHTA was in need of some strengthening and we were pleased with our discussions," Johnson said.
He continued: "It is no secret that Carnival generates visitors to the island right at the start of what is traditionally the slow season. Our festival has the ability to extend our high season with proper promotion, the use of technology and social networking and more. We wanted to hear the SHTA’s ideas about all of this and how they think Carnival could develop and grow to benefit our tourism product in general. We took away a number of great suggestions."
Robert Dubourcq of the SHTA said: "The SHTA board members were happy to hear that the SCDF is ahead of schedule in the 2011 Carnival organization and could advise the dates April 25 to May 3rd, 2011. This could open possibilities for the Hotel Industry to come out with Carnival specials for fans."
Johnson added that the SCDF hopes to meet again with the SHTA sometime before Carnival 2011 starts and after it concludes.