Nevis Enjoys Promising Cruise Season

Nevis had a good year in tourism in 2016, according to the Chief Executive Officer of the Nevis Tourism Authority, Greg Phillip.

“Well in 2016 our highlight for Nevis Tourism was we had a good year in general given all the challenges we faced. Our revenue numbers for the year so far are pretty much in pace with those of last year and last year was one of the best years we’ve had in the past few years.”

Cruise Tourism this season also looks promising, Phillip said.

“One thing that we can say is that the 2016/2017 season is shaping up to be a good one, its anticipated that it will be better than last year. The way we have started highlights that, we started with the biggest ships that we wanted to get here on Nevis, those ships have started us off very well with a number of early calls. This year we are anticipating that for the 2016/2017 season we will have about 3000 more cruise passengers than we had last year, which is a big plus for Nevis.

Air travel too, is said to be shaping up well, with the RLB International in Basseterre playing a role in Nevis tourism.

“When we speak of airlift to Nevis we definitely have to speak of the airport on St Kitts which is very significant for Nevis.  We know that about 75 percent of the people come through the airport of St Kitts, RLB, and there have been some very positive things that have happened to the benefit of both islands. We’ve seen an increase airlift announced by United Airlines, Delta Airlines and American Airlines still continues their good service and those are benefiting us. We also have to speak about what is happening in the UK and our joint efforts in the UK to get people on British Airways have really been paying off.  We can see the numbers have increased both in Nevis and St Kitts, and a number of hotels here on Nevis have really done well out of the UK this year and we are continuing that push.”

CEO Phillip says there are also a number of airlines serving Nevis in the Caribbean context.

“If we’re talking Caribbean travel into Nevis, Seaborne continues to do a good job for us out of Puerto Rico, there is also Tradewind Aviation who fly from Puerto Rico to Nevis and they provide a very high end service.  Winair is really our staple and earlier this year they were designated as a national carrier for St Kitts and Nevis which allows it to do a lot more for both islands, that we are capitalizing on. LIAT has decided to pull out of Nevis and them pulling out is significant news but over the years what we’ve done here on Nevis is to ensure that we establish good relationships with carriers around the Caribbean who can service Nevis such as Caribbean Helicopters, who were flying from Antigua to Nevis on behalf of LIAT, and we did was we reverted to the agreement we had before they had that deal with LIAT so the service was not disrupted because of LIAT’s decision.”

Source: WINN-FM