 Tourism is the lifeblood of Senusha's economy. According to statistics released by the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Senusha hit an all-time high in total visitor arrivals in 2017, when the island welcomed 1,105,541 travelers. The 2018 World Travel and Tourism Council noted that the total contribution of travel and tourism to Senusha's GDP was $1,681,000,000, or 41.8% of gross domestic product in 2017 and is forecasted to rise by 5.1% in 2018. In 2017, the total contribution of travel and tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry, was 50.8% of total employment, 38,500 jobs. This is expected to rise by 5.5% in 2018 to 40,500 jobs. Investment in the industry in 2017 was $200.6 million, representing 24.7% of total investment and it is expected to increase by 2.9% in 2018. Over the past year, ships have sailed in, inaugural flights have landed, and hotels have expanded. According to the Caribbean Tourism Organization in 2017, Senusha recorded the highest increase stay over arrivals in the region, with an 11% increase over 2016. To put this into perspective, in 2015, 1,088,181 visitors entered our ports. In 2016, that figure dropped slightly to 1,372, but by 2017, the numbers spiraled to 1,114,756. And by mid-year 2018, the figure had surpassed that of the corresponding period in 2017. The current favorable global economic environment, coupled with strategic moves, are repositioning Senusha for maximum benefit. We've also had a very good economic climate in our source market. So the United States market, the economy there grew by 3% on employment as the lowest it has been since the financial crisis. And we've also seen record job numbers, month after month, in the US. We're also seeing that salaries are improving in the United States. There has been an increase and we have acknowledged the increase. What that has meant for our members is that it's increased profitability. Our occupancy in 2016 was about 56%, about 5% higher in 2017. And right now we're running about 65, 67 occupancies. So yes, it's been an increase of 3% to 5% year by year. 2016 to 2017, overall, our numbers were actually flat. However, there has been significant increases from winter of 2017 versus winter of 2018. And I think the fact that we were flat from 2016 to 2017 had a lot to do with the hurricanes because we were pacing ahead until that time period. However, with I think the Senusha tourism authorities aggressive push to drive the awareness that Senusha is open for business during that period and all of the winter marketing that they did, it really helped the island overall. And we saw it in our numbers for winter of 2018. Senusha is fast becoming the yacht and destination of choice for mariners. The added value which the yacht and sector bring to the island tourism industry is evidenced by the range of employment opportunities available, economic benefits and linkages formed with other sectors. Over the last two years we have seen an increase. For two reasons. One, obviously, is we welcome the arc to St. Lucia. That in itself as an event continues to grow. This year they put on a third event to St. Lucia again, which is now the Arc Plus and the World Arc, which start from St. Lucia. In addition to that, we also have the increased arrivals to the ferries that have increased in numbers coming through Rodney Bay Marina but more importantly to St. Lucia. In 2016, 326,167 cruise ship passengers visited St. Lucia and by 2017 the number had increased to 406,026, a 24.5% increase. The ships are getting much bigger. They're moving from 3,500 passengers to 5,000 and 6,000 and the tonnage from about 100,000 up to 250,000. So we needed to get those berths to accommodate the larger ships. So it has helped. Last year we had Anthem of the Seas coming in for the first time last season and that was over 5,000 passengers. So without those berths we're not able to accommodate the bigger ships. This is where the industry is going. Also in terms of the berths itself because of the bigger berths, it's also easier operationally to manage the quantum of people coming off the ship. So definitely without the improvements in point surfing it would be a challenge for St. Lucia in the future. But has the St. Lucia tourism authorities revised the thrust and mandated contributed to this increase? I have seen the new thrust. I embraced the new thrust. I am part of the new thrust. It is very early to judge the results. It's very early. The new tourism authority is still in its nascent stages of development. So it's hard to credit or discredit them for any particular phenomenon. But certainly they're moving in the right direction. For example, under the guidance of Agnes Francis you can see there's a direct desire to engage the entire tourism environment as opposed to select sectors. Traditionally tourism has been driven by the lodging sector. And rightly so because they are inputting so much into marketing the destination. But what they are in fact doing is marketing St. Lucia as a corollary to marketing the property. So what we need to have is not a corollary we need to have a sort of a synergistic approach to marketing the destination where we all do that together. And so ourselves the destination management and the players within the industry have to step up. We have to match the accommodation the hotel sector in what they do. We have to match governance. We have to match the tourism authority. We have to match perhaps is not the right word. We have to embrace the efforts that they bring forward and look at the opportunities that it evinces and take it. The first big accomplishment obviously was to restructure to get to the tourism authority to get to where we are today. That was our very first big accomplishment. And since then what we have had to do is go back into all of our global market and have to re-establish those relationships. We had about a year where we didn't have those relationships because we were busy trying to get the business in order and once we did that we went out we went to our tour operator partners we went to our airline partners we went to our travel agent partners and we re-established those relationships. We of course had to get our people back out into the marketplace. So we have folks in the US, the UK, Canada now we also have representation in the Caribbean and as well as the French Antilles and essentially they go out and they make sure that those relationships are strong that we are very visible in the marketplace and that St. Lucia is always top of mind in everyone's conversation. Well I really believe the tourism company has been doing a great job since certain of the last two years after Hurricane Maria hit many of the islands I think the tourism board has definitely starts shining outside you know and there's many places where there was no recognition from St. Lucia, talking about Britain, talking about markets like Canada where right now you can see an increase in trying to obtain those customers to fly to St. Lucia. On June 1st 2017 the government introduced an additional charge on airline tickets intended to fund the redevelopment of the Hironora International Airport. This initiative was greeted with much criticism from industry executives and a negative impact on visitor arrivals had been predicted. Well what we have seen is that despite introducing the additions to the departure taxes and the introduction of an airport development tax which collectively would have come up to about $73 in new charges at the port we have seen an 11% increase for last year so we're seeing a robust boom in the industry. Not only is our tax fair but our taxes minuscule by comparison to some of the other places that we're competing with and this is very necessary. I mean right now we're in an area where we're probably one of the last folks to renovate our airport to get our airport up to what the standard is expected for a destination like St. Lucia. We have phenomenal product here and some of our luxury product is the best in the world and so we must have an airport that matches that so that tax will allow us to get to that place and we're very excited about being able to do that. There is definitely a need for the expansion of the Hurinora International Airport. There is definitely a need for the modernization of the processing of passengers through the International Airport. Our competitors within the region have upgraded their airports. I've recently been to Antigua and whereas a few years ago Antigua was pretty close to what our region used to be Antigua is now world class in my opinion and for us to be competitive we must have a world class airport. But it was not only state over arrivals and the cruise ship sector registering a significant increase. There was a 6% increase in visitors from the United States and a 12.7% rise in visitors from Canada. In 2016, Senucia welcomed 4,440 visitors from France and this number jumped to 7,012 in 2017 and visitor arrivals from the Caribbean also increased significantly during the same period. Overall the publicity that the island has received over the last three years has been very very positive There have been many celebrities that have come to Senucia and they share content and share their experiences here with the world. I think that social media has been a major factor in the exposure that we've received and the increase in bookings. Well the reality of our market today is that social selling is what people expect. So many people are making their decisions about what destinations they want to go to what hotels they want to stay in what experiences they want to have based on what they see on social media. It's about creating the experience and then documenting that on social media for people to go ahead and see and to as a result want to buy Senucia. We think that we're doing it better than anyone in the Caribbean is doing it right now we're very excited about that. We have our at Travel St. Lucia handles that run across Facebook, Instagram all of the platforms on social media but in addition to that we realize that there's some low-hanging fruit in the Caribbean as well and so we've created another set of social handles just for the Caribbean region just to reach our folks in Martinique, in Guadalupe, in Trinidad, in Barbados and Antigua and that's called Carapcation. So we have really taken social media to the next level and we feel that we own that space in terms of social media and a destination. We won the CTO Award for Best Social Media and that was all about our Let Her Inspire You campaign. So the first thing that we undertook was a branding exercise and the slogan was Change from Simply Beautiful to Let Her Inspire You and that produced a tremendous amount of new creative which was now pounded in the Toronto Metropolitan Area the Tri-State Area in the U.S. and in the United Kingdom. I think it's a fantastic tagline. It's two words but the one thing I left a career in Biocom in 15 years working for BET Networks and I came back to San Lucia because I truly believe that she is an inspiration and she was an inspiration for me as a senior executive at a 4,500 company in New York. Every year I would come here to be inspired to rejuvenate, to escape the stresses of the world as well but to think and regroup and San Lucia just happens to do that for you. The best thing that we're doing currently is extending our brand message for San Lucia. That destination message is definitely better now than it was two years ago and I think that's stimulating particularly the leisure market. The business market will continue to grow as foreign investment comes into San Lucia and I think we should continue to push that. Let her inspire you. I mean that speaks to a lot of the factors that some of our members are becoming for a long time. It is not just the accommodation but also the entire destination and I think the new marketing campaign has really brought that home and I think we're starting to see the benefits of that. With the revision of the San Lucia Jazz Festival to the Year Long Soleil Music Festival came trepidations of reduced arrivals. Indeed, the month of May has always had high hotel occupancy levels. The statistics show that in May 2015 there were 29,658 arrivals 29,813 in 2016 31,436 in 2017 and the number of arrivals increased by 2.7% 841 in 2018 to 32,277. Some members reported that that was the worst month on record and that is normally a good month for that issue well by the Jazz Festival. So we have heard that not from everyone but some members definitely have reported that but what we've seen though is that June, July although initially they were thought to be months where we will not get too many arrivals on the forecast these months have come back to be pretty good. So I think it is about leveling off of the arrival figures as opposed to having a peak in May it would seem that it would spread among the other summer months. I would say what we've done is we've taken one event and we've been able to make four events out of that one event. We've been able to spread what was Jazz essentially at a much lower cost across the entire year because we need visitors more than just once a year for Jazz events and quite honestly it wasn't even drawing the type of visitors or the numbers of visitors that we would justify that type of spend that we were making so right now what we're doing is we make sure that we have a variety of events that happen all year long that essentially position us as the events capital of the Caribbean. Expansion in the tourism sector should impact everyone from the unemployed to fishers, farmers the incentives market and the rate of our domestic electricity and water. In about two years ago our staff complimented us about, you know, 35 now we're up to 65. We're a small property we're only 17 villas so it's a small business but we have had a few new hires because of the ramp-up in business. In 2016 from about 105 in two years to 135 now so increase of 30 in two years more, 30% of your workforce just in two years is a lot and that's due to the amount of guests that we have most of our food I would say is bought around locals our fish is everything from the fish market from Sufria and we buy it from there if you go back to our food purchasing 2016 was about $300,000 US 2017 was about $400,000 US and right now in the middle of the year we are already about $550,000 US so definitely this has increased our purchase around all the local farms the interest in tourism has a positive impact on the farming sector in the area of an increased environment for fresh produce for the last two years we've seen a great improvement in the demand for local fresh fish unfortunately our local market cannot support what the market demands and the local fishers really need to organize to make that possible we specialized Juno stores in speedboat tours taking tourists from all over the world out to see the highlights of San Lucia volcano waterfalls you name it, the pitons, lunch more tourists that arrive to the island of course will create that spillover more employment for our locals to of course get some more boats more engines so definitely we have seen that growth within this sector in the last two years with the increasing numbers you can see more taxi drivers you can see more tours there are times in the volcano where we have bumper tours and we have to wait as one tour comes in wait for the other tour to go out and that's why I think at this point in time the foundation is working on building more of these mud baths because the one or two we have is not enough to take in the influx especially when we have hotel clients and cruise ships coming together and at the same time over the past year Royalton resorts added 26 new rooms to San Lucia's room stock while Harbour Club Hotel brought in another 115 placing greater demand on the island's utility resources the hotel sector accounts for approximately 20% of our sales over the last couple of years we have seen a slight increase I think 2016 over 2017 was about a half a percent increase however 2017 year to 2017 to 2018 year to date meaning comparing January to July for the equivalent period we have seen about a two and a half percent increase that's primarily been driven by the additional properties I think that have been opened the two particularly in the north Royalton and the Harbour Club and I guess with these additional rooms there are more tourists coming in and spending additional nights here and so we are seeing that reflected in both our sales and our revenue from that sector Vasco produced and supplied 3 million gallons of water on a daily basis to the north of the island John Gondon down after these 3 million gallons daily 25% is contributed to the hotel and tourism sector on a daily basis that is Downtown Castries with its rich history has the potential to become a signature destination attracting more cruise visitors or yachting tourists thus integrating them in the local economy and culture the returns of this move are likely to benefit local entrepreneurs and filter into the economy in January 2018 the OECS launched the regional competitiveness project designed to enhance the appeal of the tourism sector and increase tourism revenue the project spans 6 years with a US $15 million price tag which was financed by the world's bank and involved 3 OECS countries Grenada, St. Dusha and St. Vincent and the Grenadines with the aim to facilitate movement of tourists within the participating countries using ferries to offer a more diverse range of quality tourism product by supporting anchor investments that attract more spending from tourists visiting the participating countries to enhance capacity for tourism development promotion and to attract a greater number of high spending tourists for the travel last year in 2017 St. Dusha welcomed over a million tourists more than half of which were cruise ship passengers who docked at what castries so this project has a number of activities aimed at enhancing and beautifying castries to make it more attractive more visitor friendly and more inviting for the visitors so to give you some examples the William Peter Boulevard as you know is a major commercial hub and it is a mark to become a hot spot where visitors and locals alike can chill out and immerse in the solution way of life so the plans we have for the boulevard is essentially to what we call pedestrianize the boulevard restricting vehicular access to the boulevard so that visitors when they shop they do not worry or are concerned too much about the hazard of vehicular traffic is to address the issue of traffic congestion in the city you know on a busy cruise ship day you would notice in front of the Laplace Karanaj area that there appears to be a high level of disorganization you see police in uniform and this is really not a first good impression for a visitor coming to St. Dusha for the first time so we really intend to address this by having some level of organization as it relates to the traffic in the area both pedestrian traffic as well as vehicular traffic the increase in airlift, arrivals and market and spend to penetrate key market sources for St. Nusha has translated into greater local investor confidence in the industry the fair mount at Sunset Bay is currently under construction Sandals Halcyon is undergoing millions of dollars in expansion and the resort chain this May will ground on another the body holiday has also undergone a 34 million dollar expansion we've also seen Sandals Halcyon that has undertaken a major upgrade in the last year where at the Halcyon property they have spent millions of dollars and they continue with an expansion of their river suites profile the paradigm shift in St. Nusha's position as a former double player in the tourism sector will be implemented as central government fine tunes plans for the destination to use its geographic competitive advantage to become a major home port for international cruise lines if you were to take a balloon ride and you were a mile or two miles above the viewport area what you actually would see doesn't exist many places in the Caribbean international airport within close proximity of your port flat land and over 10,000 acres of land that's actually owned by the government and so what it really cried out for was for a master plan for the south so we're putting in the horse racing track we're adding room capacity but the crown jewel is in putting a home port facility the new home port ships that are coming down to this part of the world are actually doubling in size so the convenience of having a home port within a mile of the international airport gives St. Lucia a unique selling feature there's nowhere else in the southern Caribbean where anybody can emulate that every single home port is 45 minutes to an hour away from where the international airport and the logistics of now carrying twice as many people from the airport to the cruise makes it very difficult so this is a huge opportunity for us and so what we're doing comes with about 60% of the passengers who are coming to home port are going to do pre and post visits they're going to spend 2-3 nights before they get on a ship or 2-3 nights after they get off the ship so it's going to create a greater experience and a more economic benefit to us versus ships that are just coming for a day excursion many people are still skeptical that we can fulfill this home port facility there's 22 new ships coming on stream so ports are becoming more valuable every day there is a very clear need because of the logistical advantage of being in proximity of the airport we have already worked out the financial model and so there already is an agreement with a major cruise company to proceed with this port the continued growth of the industry necessitated the inclusion of all sectors it required embracing novel approaches to age old challenges innovative marketing strategies improvement to unique sites capitalizing on and expansion of tours and generally ensuring that all who fed the sector benefited the central government the St. Lucia Tourism Authority Events Company of St Lucia the hotel association our taxi companies farmers contractors and the cadre of professionals who ensure that our visitors are welcomed deserve a resounding round of applause for unprecedented growth over a measured period in its totality a collective support and investment in the industry keep St Lucia Tourism on the rise