TECHNOLOGY-ST MAARTEN: Using the Internet to Boost Tourism

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Marvin Hokstam

PHILIPSBURG, Jul 14 1999 (IPS) - As Caribbean tourism officials try to come up with innovative ways to boost the industry in the region, some persons are arguing that more countries need to turn their attention to the Internet as they seek to market their product more aggressively.

“The Caribbean is missing a paradigm shift,” Judy Nisbeth, head of the Education Committee of the St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Commission says.

“…(The Internet) is a major marketing tool, the least expensive we have, but still it’s not up to date and used to its full extent,” Nisbeth says.

The Internet has really opened up completely new areas of marketing and the ability to contact people all over the world at local pricing has improved tremendously, say Roy Richardson and John Dovale, two entrepreneurs in the island’s virginal technology market.

“Take the U.S for instance,” says Richardson. “Some years ago, that country was the third or fourth in economic marketing. Then the current administration took far reaching decisions, among which was one to de-regulate the telecommunications industry and the Internet. The result of this decision gave birth to Electronic commerce that has propelled the U.S economy to the commanding position it holds today.

“The country’s surplus today is much more than they had anticipated,” he says. If the same concept of the U.S marketing model was used here, Caribbean countries could be doing much better.

While Nisbeth is planning an Internet Marketing workshop, to increase the knowledge among islanders about using Internet as a sales tool, Richardson and Dovale are already extolling the virtues of the Internet.

The two, both managers of leading technology companies in St. Maarten -Richardson manages New Technologies Group and Dovale runs IDL, an Internet service provider- say Internet has supplied them with markets, that would otherwise be inaccessible.

“We have the ability to supply custom- made software anywhere in the world and by taking advantage of Electronic commerce, we’ve designed and installed for clients in countries such as Kosovo, Chili, and Albania. Projects in Aruba, Barbados, Panama and St. Kitts are pending,” says Dovale.

Internet, Richardson adds, offers the most lucrative form of advertising and the beautiful part of it, is that it offers users the ability to interact. According to Dovale “Tourists can cut down on their bills and wasted time tremendously.”

The first week most tourists now spend on vacation is wasted in finding their way around, asking where the best shops and places to go are. By making use of the Internet the right way, a tourist can log on and interact with the providers and find out everything, before they even step on their flight over, says Richardson.

A few shops in St. Maarten have, according to Richardson, already got the hang of it. “We designed websites for all kinds of shops, from Cuban cigar sellers to jewellery stores,” he says.

One jewellery salesman made it his business to remain in contact with his clients when they return to their countries and offers unique services, such as having their custom-made jewellery waiting for them, on their next visit to the island.

The problem however, according to Nisbeth, is one that starts with the negligence of government. St. Maarten’s website is not linked to every other tourism site.

And, that, she says, started with the wrong choice of provider for the site. That U.S-based company, Inter-Knowledge is over burdened, Nisbeth says. “There simply are not enough experts to do the job and the ones that Inter Knowledge has working, are over-occupied with other projects, so the quality attention every site deserves, isn’t given.”

That is why, she says, more people should be made aware of how to fully use the net as a marketing tool.

“The Internet makes it so much easier not to have to step in an airplane to sell our product. It’s at the tip of our fingers,” says Nisbeth.

But Dovale and Richardson argue that the Caribbean is ready for the advantages of E-commerce. “The fact that it isn’t used to its full extent is the problem of the Caribbean,” says Dovale.

He says it is a booming business that does not even needs to be invented because it is already available. “Recent figures talk about a 13 billion-dollar revenue in the U.S only,” Richardson says.

“E-commerce has the potential to do the same for the Caribbean region. This however cannot and will not happen until such governments and specifically telecommunications companies stop viewing the Internet as a threat to their long-standing, monopolistic hold on the exchange of information, while it in fact is a strategic resource for both tourism and economic development,” he says.

Tourism is the number one foreign exchange earner in most of the Caribbean islands. It employs about 25 percent of the regional population and contributes close to 30 percent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Some experts suggest that the industry has the potential to generate as many as 600,000 new jobs in the wider Caribbean by the year 2007. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates job growth in the region of 21.1 percent in this sector alone.