Saint Lucia tourism officials are preparing to welcome over 700 new hotel rooms to the island’s accommodations in 2016, along with a new marketing campaign and push for new island investment.
Rex resorts has re-opened the 110 room Papillon Hotel after completing extensive renovations as an all-inclusive four-star property in February 2016 with Air Canada Vacations as the exclusive tour operator out of Canada. The Papillon Hotel is located adjacent to the St. Lucian and Royal by Rex Resorts Hotels on Reduit Beach near Rodney Bay.
Also set to open this year, the Harbor Club on the Rodney Bay Marina will feature 115 four-star accommodations with a number of amenities that include two restaurants, lounges, a full-service spa, gym, pool recreational concept and 4,000 square feet of meeting and conference space. Adjacent to the Harbor Club is the recently completed Dive Saint Lucia, one of the premier scuba diving centers in the Eastern Caribbean featuring state of the art facilities at the complex just south of the Rodney Bay Marina.
In late 2016, Royalton Luxury Resorts will add to its rapidly expanding portfolio of vacation experiences with the upscale Royalton Saint Lucia near Cap Estate. The elegant resort features 361 luxurious rooms, eight restaurants and six bars, world class spa, onsite splash park, conference space and an exclusive 94-suite, adults-only hotel within a resort called Hideaway.
“This overdue hotel boom adds much-needed inventory to meet the demands of our key source markets” said Louis Lewis, Director Tourism. “Tourism growth is a priority, and Invest Saint Lucia and the newly opened Saint Lucia’s Citizenship by Investment Office will continue to seek new investment and development for the island.”
Lewis reported that the U.S., the island’s leading market with more than 44 percent of arrivals in 2015, realized a seven percent growth in visitors compared to 2014. Saint Lucia saw six record-breaking months in 2015 – January, February, March, April, June and October – for a total of nearly 345,000 visitors for the year and an overall increase in stay-over arrivals of two percent, following a six percent rise in arrivals in 2014.
“Partnership is key to the continued success of Saint Lucia’s marketing efforts,” said Lewis. “We work closely with our hotel and product partners, travel agent partners, tour operators and airlines, to harness ideas and resources for the benefit of the overall destination.” He added that the Saint Lucia Tourist Board will unveil a new marketing campaign in the second half of 2016 with plans to refresh the brand with new collateral and photography.
Dominica remains last kar kar rat in everything..BAD LEADERSHIP!!!!
We just can’t get it together. We need a hospital, real bad. Let’s start there first. When you build all these hotels and invite visitors to our shores, where will they seek treatment if they become ill? We keep putting the cart before the horse.
Those who believe that the piece of crap airport in Marigot is the answer, keep the stone age mentality alive and see how far it will get you. You believe that a 14 seat aircraft landing at Canefield Airport is progress. What a waste and a crying shame. I cry for my country everyday. We are so lost.
what ever stlucia is doin and has been doing is clearly producing results… we are hearing of hotel openings. but here we hearing of phantom projects that never get on the way… interestingly st lucia seems to be selling passports aswell… but unlike us, we seeing their results….what do we have to show for our passport sales???
Stop praising st lucia, cause st lucians are calling it fraud and on SLNO they only got 2 comments on that story.
Dominicans always happy for other countries Developments and always cry down ours. Our Government is trying but the the Opposition is not willing to help build the country instead, they dirty our name to the World Bank, The Queen of England, IMF , EU etc
I thought Dominica and Dominica were supposed to be like brother and sister or brother and brother or sister and sister. What is your DAMN problem.
It is amazing how Dominica is hated by our own people. and for what. What will theses bullies hope to gain.
The hotel business is a good way to hide/steal money, it seem.
It is going to be interesting to see who completes their hotels first, Dominica or St. Lucia. My money is on St. Lucia. For years, the Government of Dominica has been talking about hotels that are going to be built. The race has began. Leave Layou River Hotel and the Morocco Hotel out of it, they are gone, their is no return. One by a river and the other by quick sand.
we can never reach there. dominica is blessed with to many IDIOTS.
Why does this matter to us tho? DNO trying to rub in the fact that we struggling
Yeah, just got back from a short stay in DA. I was depressed at the situation.
The contrast to neighboring Martinique and St. Lucia is stark and for Dominica just depressing.
I hate to hear of all this political chatter over an island of just poverty and deprivation. There is obesity, high rates of various illnesses, too many men with metal health issues roaming the streets like zombies, a total lack of prospects for aspiring youngsters, extremely poor standards at airports and other publics spaces, building decay and decadence in Roseau……and more.
I know we tend to see things in rose colored glasses when relating to our youth. But even allowing for after hurricane David, I do not recall seeing Dominica in such a terrible state.
Clearly a different kind of leadership is needed or the island is doomed!
And what have we got?
Defunct Layou River Hotel
Moroccan Hotel at Cabrits – construction stalled
Kapinsky – not yet started
Grand Savanne – Not yet started
Others in portsmouth area — Who the hell knows.
We still have LIAT .
Who cares? Good for St Lucia if that the way they choose to go, but remember there’s a price to pay for so call ‘development’. Dominicans are not subservient, as a people we would be better of concentrating on agriculture there’s more pride in producing food which we all need in order to survive as oppose to polluting the environment with sewage spilling in our oceans as a result of those large hotels.
Do you know that the agriculture industry in St Lucia also far surpasses that of Dominica. Also Manufacturering. So stay there talking labor party crap while the country has gone to the dogs and PIGS
And don’t forget they also have an international airport, with non stop flights from Europe and the US. Straight in no messing about.
St. Lucia has 1) Air access ie, direct flights from the main tourist market. It takes someone 3 days and two stops to get to Dominica. Hopefully liat on time. By time you get to Dominica half your money spent on hotels and food in Puerto Rico and Antigua if you nah sleep in the airport.
2) In all the islands i have been to St.Lucians are the most welcoming and friendliest. It tells of there respect for service. The Game show wheel of fortune often highlight St.Lucia and give trips there as prizes.
3) St. Lucians love thier country and have found a way to make it attractive to the population who are most likely to take tours ( US and Canadians). Not southeast Asians, not Chinese, not Venezuelans, not Russians. These countries are runned by gov and not free markets so they do not have money to spend.
In addition there has to be very strong pull factors for what ever tourist niche you trying to attract. They have figured Thiers out. 30 yrs we still argue about international air port.
Ahhhhh,you can see things are happening in St. Lucia.
Not this bunch of “dunscat” here running their mouth and nothing is happening.
all u uwp people hit the pm so much he talk about hotel and allu redy to say so much thing but allu happy for st.lucia geting the samething.
They have TWO International Airports. We can’t even decide what the NAME of our little airport is!
Idiot…the St. Lucians are ACTUALLY opening hotels! They ACTUALLY saw significant growth in tourist arrivals both stayover and cruise ship visitors. They aren’t talking about what “will come” in future years…they are telling you what has already been built and will open doors THIS VERY YEAR!
They have an international airport and they receive more than 2.5X more tourists than Dominica! Open your eyes and see whats what!
They actually have a product which the traveller wants other than beauty. What do you think people are going to do after they have visited the sites in Dominica? Hit the rum shots and listen to sewo?
The truth is my PM has been talking about hotels since they started selling more pasdports than bananas and up to now not one hotel. The closest we came to a hotel is the now crab Morocco Hotel that need Moroccan fertilizer to spring to life.
And that is no B.S. The results are there to see. The St Lucia governments UWP and Labor Party though corrupt have done St Lucia well in terms of moving the island forward. Our government over the last 15 years ( which incidentally is the period in which St Lucia made humongous strides) have plundered the country resources. It is the government who have had the best opportunity to propell Dominica forward. With VAT, Petro Caribe, Chavez, Chinee, Kadaffi , more passport sold. We have seen very little or next to nothing.
St.Lucia GOVERNMENT IS TRANSPARENT AND IS HONEST TO THE PEOPLE.CONGRATS ST.LUCIA.
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? ARE YOU A RESIDENCE OF ST LUCIA
You mean resident. Oh boy Laborites eh
He is probably not, but a lot of Dominicans are… Must be nice over there
my friend so many people don’t live in Dominica and knows all what’s going on here is people like you so and the rest the PM like (F..l) that’s just what the internet is for to get information on whats going on in the world maybe you need to get out of the black hole the PM have you in MR MEN IN BLACK
there is no transparent government in the English speaking Caribbean. so put down the pipe please.
D N O or SL N O, well well.
Meanwhile our soon to be Doctor leader running all over the world selling passports to build phantom hotels and a hotel fully funded by Morocco cannot be completed.
Look like Dominica is asleep.
DO YOU KNOW HOW ST LUCIA GET THEIR FUNDS
DO YOU?
And its working for them can you tell us where our PM getting his from ?