Jazz Festival lures 16 percent of tourists to St. Lucia
Egged on by the fact that the St. Lucia Jazz Festival –one of the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean- draws in 16 percent of travelers to an island of barely 145,000 inhabitants, the nation’s president of the Tourism Board, Desmond Skeete, trumpeted his country will plan the biggest such event in the history of the S. Lucia Jazz Festival in the month of May.
In an interview with One Caribbean newspaper, Mr. Skeete pointed out this year’s festival will take place from May 2 to 10 and will be for the first time ever open to blues, R & B and some of the world’s other music for a walloping 25 presentations.
The two closing sessions will be livened up by Boyz II Men, Fourplay and Earth Wind & Fire, with special presentations of Elio Reve y su Charangon, Herbie Mann, the Michael Brecker Quartet, Kindred and Mike Phillips among other acts.
According to an official poll, around 16 percent of travelers coming to this tiny paradise of just 616 square kilometers first heard of the country through the Jazz Festival, an event that counts on the support of the nation’s tourism authorities.
In 2002, the island was visited by 684,846 tourists. As many as 260,372 of them flew to St. Lucia and 424,474 vacationers docked in aboard cruise liners. That reckons an average of 4.7 tourists per islander.
Estimates have it that the jazz event pours $14.8 million into the local economy every year and helps put such local swingers as Ronald “Boo” Hinkson and Luther Francois on the musical map.
In Mr. Skeete’s opinion, another major smash hit scored by the festival is its impact on the dwellers of neighboring islands in the West Indies since roughly 40 percent of all visitors come from those places.
As to the access to St. Lucia during the musical event, Mr. Skeete asserted there are no hurdles whatsoever because all airlines operating in the regions add extra flights for the Jazz Festival. Nonetheless, it happens that latecomers are usually bound to lodge in the houses of relatives since most hotels are jam-packed by then.
