How About Coupons For Inter-Island Travel To and From St. Maarten?
Published Sunday, June 14th, 2009, 1:36pm
Last month, I published a column which also generated some interest and notable responses.
One such responsee agreed that the suggestion to use Winair to provide free airlift from the surrounding Caribbean islands to bring tourists, business travelers and shoppers to the island as a way to boost the island’s economy in the faltering worldwide financial crisis affecting many travellers’ vacation plans was a good idea.
However, the writer offered another good idea that has merits and worthy of a follow-up discussion in this forum. The responsee wrote and I quote:
The idea to try and use Winair is a good one. Certainly with an eye on the future new arrangements in The Kingdom, St. Maarten becoming a ‘Land’ vis-a-vis Aruba, Curacao and The Netherlands, it would/should be feasible to further develop Winair. If you’d have just one flight per week to Europe, one to Washington DC (or another well chosen port) this would be great. More important, if I could buy a decent flight arrangement in Amsterdam (or somewhere in US) that included ‘coupons’ for inter-island flights from St. Maarten to surrounding places like St. Barth’s, Trinidad, The Dominican Republic and the like, it would enable me to use St. Maarten as a hub for a vacation with one or more day ‘excursions’ in the Caribbean. Now the ticketprices are prohibitive if the flights are at all available.
That’s not only a good idea, I think that is a great idea: Coupons for inter-island flights from St. Maarten to surrounding islands like St. Barths .
Obviously this idea needs more research as to its feasibility and practical market implementation to test the pros and cons, but I certainly do like this idea. How about you? Let me know what you think…
Terrance Rey
