In a few weeks, St. Maarten, will be featured on the most watched travel show in Europe and seen by potentially a quarter-of-a-billion people across the globe. The BBC Travel Show sent a crew to the island recently to cover the SXM Music Festival. While on island, contact was made with the St. Maarten Tourism Bureau and an interview setup with its new Head Rolando Brison.
In the interview with the BBC, Brison was asked about the destination’s tourism product, about the uniqueness of the airport and about the SXM Music Festival that they came to cover and how it fits into the tourism product. The BBC Travel Show utilizes a network of correspondents in London, Tokyo, Sydney, New York and Kuala Lumpur and the program aims to provide unique insight into the world of travel.
The 30-minute episode about SXM Music Festival show will be broadcasted within the next 3 to 4 weeks to a major portion of the 265 million direct subscribers of the BBC channels that broadcast the show, plus many other affiliates around the world as well as potentially millions of views more across YouTube and social media.
Since the BBC typically does not play any paid advertisements, the only way to get advertising on their network is through programming. With the value of a national television one minute ad being over US $300,000, the exposure St. Maarten will receive from the SXM Music Festival episode is more than 2 to 4 million euros potentially, based on how many viewers will ultimately watch the show.
“The island just got a huge boost of European and global advertising through the BBC’s decision to send The Travel Show to cover St. Maarten and the SXM Music Festival. I was proud to tell the world about why St. Maarten needs to be the next place they visit for a great vacation in a place that we expect they will fall in love with,” Brison said.
“We will continue to make efforts to attract such high-profile media to the destination either by means of our marketing agencies, or through the support for major events like Heineken Regatta, St. Maarten Carnival and now SXM Festival who do such a great job bringing top notch media coverage to our destination,” he added.