Where does a destination end? On a map, the answer is easy. At a border, a coastline or the edge of a jurisdiction. For a traveler, the answer is very different.
Someone staying in Sint Maarten may have breakfast in Simpson Bay, spend the afternoon in Grand Case and have dinner in Marigot. Tomorrow they may take the ferry to Anguilla. Later in the week, perhaps they visit St. Barth’s, fly to Saba or spend a day discovering St. Eustatius.
They are not consciously moving between tourism organizations, government responsibilities or administrative structures. They are experiencing their holiday.
And perhaps that is where our thinking should start.
Too often, tourism is organized from the inside out. We define responsibilities, territories, budgets and mandates, and then build the visitor experience around those boundaries. But what if we reversed that? What if we first asked what the traveler wants to experience, and then organized ourselves around making that journey easier?
The Dutch St. Maarten Tourism Bureau naturally has responsibility for promoting Sint Maarten. Cross the border into Saint-Martin and another organization takes over. Board a ferry to Anguilla or a flight to Saba or St. Eustatius, and another destination becomes responsible.
Institutionally, that makes perfect sense. From the traveler’s perspective, however, nothing particularly significant has changed. They still need reliable information. They still want to know where to go, what to experience, how much time they need, what documents are required and how they will get back.
Especially when time is limited, convenience becomes part of the experience.
A visitor with six hours in Anguilla, Saba or St. Eustatius should not need to become an expert in ferry or flight schedules, immigration requirements, transportation options and multiple tourism websites before deciding whether the trip is worthwhile. Their question is much simpler:
What can I experience today, and how easily can I do it?
Putting the visitor at the center does not mean removing borders or diminishing the responsibility of individual destinations. Nor should it make our islands more alike.
Quite the opposite.
Anguilla should feel unmistakably like Anguilla. Saint-Martin should retain its French-Caribbean character. Sint Maarten, Saba, St. Eustatius and St. Barth’s should each protect what makes them different. The opportunity is not to standardize the experiences.
It is to simplify the journey between them.
Perhaps this requires us to think differently about where our responsibility ends. Not legally or administratively, but from the perspective of hospitality. Because a traveler’s journey does not stop where an organization’s mandate does.
If we genuinely place visitors at the center of tourism decisions, our starting point changes. Instead of asking, “What are we responsible for?”, we begin asking:
“What does the traveler need next?” That small change in perspective can have enormous consequences.
Our borders define our destinations.
They should not define the visitor experience.
Michiel Parent
Connecting People, Places and Technologies