From left: Javier Badaracco of the Minister Plenipotentiary’s cabinet; NBTC Partnership Development Manager Thijs de Groot; STB Product Development head Ichel Moeslikan; TEATT Minister Stuart Johnson; Kelly Busby of the Minister Plenipotentiary’s cabinet; and NBTC strategy and branding project manager Emilie Zonnevylle.
PHILIPSBURG--Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication (TEATT) Minister Stuart Johnson is in the Netherlands where he spent much of Wednesday speaking with the Netherlands Bureau for Tourism and Conventions (NBTC) on solidifying collaboration agreements for improving St. Maarten’s marketing strategy.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Johnson discussed with NBTC how St. Maarten can improve its branding efforts. He also discussed how the country can benefit from the expanded use and gathering of information.
He said improving the way the country collects and makes use of data can assist St. Maarten in increased brand recognition. “In general, creating a better and more sustainable strategy for branding St. Maarten as a preferred vacation destination is our ultimate goal.”
According to Johnson, there must be a “paradigm shift” in terms of how the destination is branded. Increased focus will be put into interpreting what the visitor data collected by TEATT is saying about St. Maarten as a vacation destination, he said.
“The discussions were fruitful and will continue as the NBTC and TEATT, through the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau (STB), work on the details of their plans, including Kingdom relationship-building,” Johnson said.
The NBTC 2030 development plan entitled “Perspective 2030” was shared and highlighted with a presentation to Johnson and his delegation.
“We must focus on quality tourism for our country and continue to lead by example in every sector of the industry,” Johnson said.
One of the areas identified for improving St. Maarten’s destination marketing strategy was influence marketing. This means putting more St. Maarten artistes out into the wider world to sell the destination. Johnson said that influence marketing is an opportunity to both showcase local talent and use their skill sets to captivate their audience(s) and promote St. Maarten.
“The plan is also to increase our reach through networking and to solidify our message of being open for business as ‘the best vacation destination on earth’ by capitalising on positive stories from visitors to further strengthen our message,” said Johnson.
