PHILIPSBURG--“The St. Maarten Tourist Bureau (STB) plans to conduct an in-depth inspection and survey of all hotel properties that will not only list the total room availability but also the projection from all damaged properties as to what progress they can expect over the next three, six and twelve months,” said STB head Rolando Brison this past weekend.
“This should give us a good prognosis on how far out until we are back to 100 per cent room capacity. We have just around 1,200 rooms out of normally having 4,100 before [Hurricane – Ed.] Irma. This means we are at 30 per cent capacity,” he said in a comment invited by The Daily Herald.
“No signs are currently up from the STB that were up before the storm. All were destroyed during Irma and being repaired. We have sent the bid to Traxx, Imagen Graphics, Livitt Media and Easy Print. These will cover beaches, attractions and cruise area.
“The maximum expected cost is NAf. 37,000. Once we have received bids we will prepare the advice. The SXM Timeshare Association was the ones who did the green roadside signage years ago, and those have been destroyed (the green signs with the arrows and district in white text).
“That would be a costly affair, as initial estimate said replacing those signs would cost over NAf. 300,000. My judgement felt that that was too high a cost for the country to bear at this time, so I have not written an advice on such.”
Brison did not indicate when the in-depth inspection and survey of all hotel properties will take place.
