St. Vincent’s Tourism Minister, Carlos James, says the island is expected to see a boost in air access in 2024.
During a press conference in Kingstown on Monday, James highlighted that although there have been notable achievements and a return to pre-pandemic levels, the overall progress is still modest due to the country’s limited airlift capability.
“There is no doubt that we need to increase our airlift capacity.” To deal with that, we need to increase the number of rooms on the island. I believe we have the capacity to proceed in that direction.”
“We expect at least two additional carriers to arrive in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the coming months.” And I’m hopeful that by next year, 2024, we’ll see an increase in the number of flights from our source markets, moving from two to three flights per week to daily flights from all source markets.”
On September 8, during the Prime Minister’s visit to the Sandals Resort site, Terence Des Vignes, the Regional Project Director of Sandals International, expressed that collaborative efforts were underway with multiple airlines, including Delta and JetBlue, to enhance the airlift capacity of St. Vincent.
“We have a company within Sandals called Unique Vacation; Mr. Gary Sadler is our main person at Unique; he’s been working with all the airlines, including Air Canada, Delta, and JetBlue”.
In July, Alex Marte, vice president of airline relationships and sales development at Unique Vacations Inc. (UVI), an affiliate of the worldwide representatives of Sandals and Beaches, said they were particularly excited that JetBlue was showing interest in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a destination and said the airline would be embarking on an exploratory trip to the island.
On Monday, September 18th, James expressed his belief that although the data is still being analyzed for the year 2024, it is anticipated to be an extremely productive year for the sector.
“I believe that we are going to see a bumper year, a record year in terms of arrivals in the year 2024. And it’s one of the years that I’m looking forward to in terms of our tourism numbers. We intend to see a natural increase in room stock, the completion of sandals, and the completion of Holiday Inn Express. We have seen expansions to beachcombers, the Hotel Alexandrina, new rooms added at La Vue, and the completion of the Maya Suite,”, James said.
