St Kitts Minister of tourism, the Honourable Richard Skerritt recently visited the Excel exhibition centre in London as he was leading the St Kitts and Nevis delegation to the 2011 World Travel Market.
He revealed that bookings to St Kitts are up on the same period last year, and advance bookings are up 16% compared to the same time last year. Visitors from the US account for 60% of visitors arrivals to St Kitts and Nevis, while visitors from Britain account for 10% as do travellers from Canada. The remaining 20% of visitors come from the Caribbean market.
Minister Skerritt said "We come to the World Travel Market because we can meet a lot of travel trade and the travel media who we do business with on an ongoing basis. We use it as a sort of a meeting point and as a networking point, but we also use it to refresh business contacts and we try to get new business.
We constantly look into introducing our destination to the British market." The London-based St Kitts tourism office has three staff members, while the entire St Kitts and Nevis delegation consisted of 13 people exhibiting from a single booth.
The tourism office partners with British Airways and does a lot of joint programmes. British Airways currently has two direct flights a week to St Kitts from London Gatwick to Robert L Bradshaw International airport. The weekly flight on Saturday will be three years old in January 2012 while the midweek flight on Tuesdays will be three years old in 2013.
According to Skerritt these flights have made all the difference in the country's ability to market in the UK. St Kitts is often promoted as being an upmarket travel destination, and this view is certainly borne out as British Airways has seen most growth in the number of business and first-class seats being sold for travel to the island.
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