Not only did 2019 mark 40 years of independence for Saint Lucia but they also achieved a record year for over-night stays and once again was named ‘The World's Best Honeymoon Destination’ for the 11th year in a row.

Last night the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority held an event for travel agents and media at Hotel X in Toronto where they gave thanks to their amazing Canadian team and shared some highlights from their upcoming Summer Festival season.

“We are so grateful, we had an incredible year! We broke 400,000 overnight visitors for the first time ever in 2019 and that was a result of the incredible support from the team here in Canada,” Beverly Nicholson Doty, CEO of Saint Lucia Tourism Authority proudly announced at yesterdays event. “…in Saint Lucia, we do festivals well. It always starts off with the Jazz Festival in May, then it goes into Carnival in June and July, rolls into Roots and Soul and ends with Creole in October.”

Saint Lucia has been home to the best jazz festival in the Caribbean for more than 28 years since it started in 1992. The festival has attracted visitors from around the world and following the success of Saint Lucia’s inaugural Jazz Festival produced in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2019, Saint Lucia announced earlier this month that they will be continuing the partnership for a second year. The three-day festival will feature world-renowned artists who have performed in Jazz at Lincoln Centre’s seasonal concerts including The Ramp on Rodney Bay and Gros Islet Park.

“These [events] really are just added value reasons to visit Saint Lucia in the summer…” continued Nicholson Doty. "In addition to the wonderful sulfur springs, mud baths, incredible beaches, wonderful vistas you can visit year-round.”

The island whose economy is heavily funded by the tourism industry has seen a lot of new developments in the past year including the opening of The Royal Saint Lucia Turf Club. The government of Saint Lucia has also made a hundred million dollar investment into improving the island's infrastructure including improving the ocal hospital and roads that supports tourism. Further, an additional 2000 rooms are also expected to be added to the islands accommodation portfolio over the next 3-5 years and enhancement to the Port Castries (Saint Lucia’s major cruise ship port) are also being promised.

“There is so much happening in Saint Lucia. We have new developments. Just this past December we opened the Royal Saint Lucia Turf Club, which had the richest [horse] race in the Caribbean. We have the new Cabot Resort and Resident Golf Club coming to Saint Lucia. Just yesterday we broke ground on the new AMResorts that are going to be in Saint Lucia,” shared Nicholson Doty.

Recently, news broke of a new hotel head tax that will be put into effect this year to help support marketing initiative however, the Saint Lucia team assured us that compared to other taxes and fees in the region the new fee is very moderate and is projected to have minimal impact on overnight stays.

“We have a new accommodation fee that will go into effect April 1 and the purpose of the fee is to fund marketing initiatives for the island. It is $3 per person [per night] up to $120 room rate and $6 per person for rooms over that… In addition to that, the VAT has been lowered from 10% to 7% for the hotels. So while we wanted to create a revenue stream for our marketing initiatives, we certainly do not want to do anything to undermine hotel and tourists development on the island,” explained Nicholson Doty.

Currently Air Canada, West Jet, and Sunwing all provide airlift to Saint Lucia. Air Canada is offering daily flights to Saint Lucia out of Toronto Pearson until end of April whereas West Jet flies twice a week and Sunwing once. In addition to flights out of YYZ, Sunwing also provides direct flights from Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport to Saint Lucia once a week.