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Jazz at the Village
On Friday, April 19, 2013,The third edition ofJazz at the Village, returns to the Laborie Village Square once again withperformances by popular Laborie musicians Ron Louis and Wendell Richards, and the talented jazz-fusion quartet Alibi. This Friday’s show begins at 7pm.
Jazz at the Village is a series of free concerts that began in January, with the objective of presenting jazz music and musicians to a wider audience. Performers to date have included Ricardo Francois, Wendell Richards, the Laborie Steel Pan Project, Shomari Maxwell and guest Andy Narell.
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Jazzy Accommodation
The newly renamed Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival welcomes legends and modern megastars to celebrate the fusion of music and artistic culture beginning April 30 to May 12, 2013. Several hotels and resorts on island are offering value-added packages and savings, with discounts of up to 30 percent off room rates, for travelers attending the festival.
ZAMACÁ (Micoud)
Stay with six nights and receive seventh night free. Full daily breakfast. Guests staying one or more weeks receive voucher transferable to friends, redeemable at Zamacà for future visit. Travel between April 26 through May 17, 2013. Room rates are $112.10 per night, per couple including tax and service charge. For more information, visit Zamaca.
Apartment Espoir (Castries)
10 percent off any available room rates for a stay of seven days or more throughout the month of May. Rates begin at $88 per night, per couple. For more information, visit Apartment Espoir. Blue Eden (Rodney Bay, Gros- Islet)
Room rates are $199 per night, per room. Rates are inclusive of taxes. For more information, visit Blue Eden.
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SLHTA Cricket O Rama
The Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association (SLHTA) would like to congratulate “Jade Mountain/ AnseChastanet” on their victory at the SLHTA Cricket-O-Rama Game. The event was held on Sunday 14th April at the Marigot Secondary School Court. There were approximately six (6) teams representing their various establishing, including Jade Mountain/AnseChastanet, Marigot Beach Club, St. James Club Morgan Bay, St. Lucia Electricity Service Ltd (LUCELEC), Sandals La Toc Golf Resort and Spa and Soufriere Hotwire Rides.
The 20/20 games are expected to commence with Round-Robin matches on Monday 29th April at the Corinth playing field, and thus far we have approximately sixteen (16) participating in the competitions for the year.
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Robert Devaux – One of St. Lucia’s Finest
One of the authors of the history of St. Lucia, Robert Devaux has died after a short battle with cancer. Devaux, a field engineer by profession, spent his lifetime writing about the history, ecology, landscape and culture of St Lucia. He served as director of the St. Lucia National Trust and wrote and published several books and articles, including the monumental St Lucia Historic Sites (1975).
In 1961, Devaux founded the St Lucia Research Centre that produced several research papers on a wide range of topics. Last year, together with Jolien Harmsen and veteran local journalist, Guy Ellis, they published ‘A History of St Lucia’.
Devaux was made an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1991. In 1993, he received a Paul Harris Fellowship Award, followed a year later by the Pigeon Island Museum Dedication. He was inducted into the Tourism Hall of Fame in 1996 and won the M&C Fine Arts Award for Literature in 1998.
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Emeric Berthet Swim and Beach Wear
Resort Boutique Buyer, Emeric Berthet will be visiting St. Lucia mid-July in order to showcase his swimwear and beachwear collection to the different 5-star hotels and resorts on the island. To schedule an appointment, please contact via email, Ermeric Berthet. |
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Briefing from the Annual Caribbean Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development
A senior international tourism official has warned that increased taxes on air transportation and tourism will damage economies and reduce travel to destinations such as the Caribbean.
Addressing the 24th annual Caribbean Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development (STC-14) in Trinidad on Monday night, Carlos Vogeler, the regional director for the Americas within the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), said taxes on tourism are an all too common occurrence.
“While properly constituted taxes and duties are a fundamental and a legitimate fiscal tool of governments worldwide, there is a growing concern regarding a proliferation of levies on both air transport and tourism. While the industry should naturally contribute its due, this trend can actually produce a net damage to the economy, particularly in those destinations which are so dependent on air travel, such as the Caribbean.”
Vogeler said clear example where taxes and duties were a clear market distortion and a trade barrier as they hamper fair competition between destinations is the United Kingdom’s air passenger duty (APD) which has been “sold” as a “green” tax, when in reality there is no link to investment in green technologies or offsetting.
Regional governments have been lobbying London to remove the tax, which they said negatively affects the growth of the tourism industry since the Caribbean has been placed in a band that makes travel to the region much more expensive than travelling from London to the United States. Last year, St Lucia Prime Minister and former Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman Dr Kenny Anthony expressed disappointment that the United Kingdom had “opted to retain its discriminatory approach”. A new report, commissioned by four airlines, British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and Virgin Atlantic, has said that scrapping the controversial APD could generate 60,000 jobs by 2020. Trinidad and Tobago’s Acting Prime Minister Winston Dookeran, who addressed the opening ceremony of the STC-14 conference, said that the APD “continues to have a deleterious effect on Caribbean economies, especially those who have traditionally depended on the UK tourism market.
The four-day conference is being organized by the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) and the Trinidad and Tobago government. It is being held under the theme “”Keeping the right balance: enhancing destination sustainability through products, partnerships, profitability”.
Vogeler said that the tourism industry continues to be a major sector for socio-economic development worldwide, including the Caribbean, noting that there are over 200 million people unemployed around the world and “we need to create 600 million new jobs over the next decade to sustain economic growth and maintain social stability”.
Indeed, tourism means jobs, business opportunities for small and medium enterprises, the renewal of urban and rural areas and, if managed in a sustainable manner, the preservation and promotion of a country’s natural and cultural heritage,” he said, noting that the conference here provides a great opportunity “to ask ourselves what this global force, travel and tourism, can do to help us navigate successfully through current challenges”.
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Sugar Beach Resort Voted
Best Honeymoon Hotel
Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort, was listed as “Best Honeymoon Hotels for 2013” thanks to Forbes.com. The company which shortlisted to eight hotels worldwide, gave special acknowledgement to our very own Sugar Beach, who is also the only Caribbean hotel on the list. It comes as no surprise to us at the Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association, especial as St. Lucia recently captured the 2012 World Travel Award for Leading Honeymoon Destination for the 4th time.
After a $100 million revamp, Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort on St. Lucia debuted a handful of new facilities and amenities, including luxury villas and several restaurants and bars. The beachfront resort offers a slew of activities for honeymooners, including kayaking, windsurfing, sailing and scuba diving at its own PADI dive center. If a guest rather retreats to the beach, they can order cocktails and food by planting a red flag in the sand.
The Rainforest Spa at Sugar Beach is a must for newlyweds with its unique location in the treetops, and signature treatments such as bamboo massages and salt scrubs-you can even get poolside massages to make the most of your time in the Caribbean sun. After exerting lots of energy scuba diving or hiking, indulge in a rum-based libation at the Cane Bar, which features a special “rummelier.”
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St. Lucia Welcomes the Return of
World Circumnavigators
A fleet of 20 sailing boats have been arriving at the beautiful Marina at Marigot Bay over the last few days to complete what has been an epic 15-month circumnavigation around the world. Many of the crews, representing 12 nationalities, are returning to Saint Lucia from where the World ARC Rally left in January, 2012. During the intervening months, the crews have sailed over 26,000 nautical miles, crossed the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans and visited many ports in over 17 different countries. For these brave sailors it has been an adventure of a lifetime.
Paul Tetlow, the Event Manager from World Cruising Club commented: “We are delighted to be back in Saint Lucia. The circle is now complete! This is a huge achievement for all the crew members taking part and we’d like to thank the Saint Lucia Tourist Board, Discovery and the Marina at Marigot Bay, IGY Rodney Bay Marina and Saint Lucia Distillers for helping us celebrate this fact with such style. The crew are really appreciative of the fantastic welcome home which they are receiving.
To mark the final end of the Rally, the fleet took part in a Parade of Sail from Marigot Bay to Rodney Bay on Saturday 13 April. The crews then arrived in Rodney Bay for further celebrations, including a final Rally dinner in the evening, organised by the Saint Lucia Tourist Board. The next World ARC Rally departs from Saint Lucia in January, 2014.
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Chef’s Administrative Training Coarse
Monroe College is currently facilitating an Administrative Training with Chefs of the various Hotels on the Island. The initiative was a collaboration between the Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association (SLHTA) and Monroe College.
The programme is geared at strengthening the competences of the chefs in a number of important areas, including Food and Beverage Cost Control, Kitchen Organization, Sanitation and Hygiene, Staff Scheduling and menu planning to name a few. The classes began on Friday 12th April 2013 from 9am to 3pm and is expected to end on Friday 3rd May 2013. Upon completion of the programme, the Chefs will graduate with a Management Level Certification.
According to the Monroe College “In the last fifteen years, we saw a change in the role of chefs; today’s chefs have developed form artistic culinary talent to a creative figure in the kitchen. In that period the chef’s business was food and that was his immediate responsibility. The chef’s business is still food, but his/her prime responsibility has changed. The chef has taken on a new and challenging role. Knowing how to cook is only one aspect of the background a chef needs. Today, they must be an organizer, a personnel, they should have some knowledge in planning menus, kitchen layout and design, equipments and various elements required to operate and maintain it, a good basic foundation in mathematics and be able to calculate food and labour costs quickly and accurately, instructing personnel in food preparation.”
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Sugar Beach Chosen for
Celebrity “I Do”
American actor Matt Damon and Argentina-born Luciana Barrosso chose Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort in St. Lucia as the location for saying “I do” for the second time in less than eight years. According to US Weekly, the parents of four, who first exchanged vows in December 2005, renewed their lifelong commitment to each other on April 13 in a Caribbean-style ceremony.
The actor is said to have rented the entire Sugar Beach Resort for the three-day celebration, picking up a tab in the mid-six figures vicinity for the privacy it afforded. The “Behind the Candelabra” star and his wife were reported to have renewed their vows at sundown in a 15-minute ceremony witnessed by friends and family including their daughters.
Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel officiated at the romantic sunset ceremony and was accompanied by his fiancée. The couple was among some 50 guests at the intimate celebration. The guests are also said to have worn lightweight, pastel coloured clothing in keeping with the Caribbean ambience. Following the brief service, the celebration continued with a cocktail reception and a tropical-style dinner on the beach.
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Direct Flights from Manu to St. Lucia
It is set to become even easier to escape the temperamental British weather as the Saint Lucia Tourist Board announces a new direct flight from Manchester Airport to the Simply Beautiful island of Saint Lucia.
From 10th November 2013, Thomas Cook Airlines will provide weekly Sunday flights. This midday departure allows travelers to benefit from a wide range of connections from regional airports across the UK and Europe including Scandinavia and Germany. Thomas Cook owns Condor, and so Saint Lucia will benefit from the Condor connectivity.
The news comes as a welcome boost as there has been a recent reduction in connections from Manchester to Gatwick, limiting the travel options for those in the Midlands, the North and Scotland to connect with Caribbean flights from London.
Louis Lewis, Director of Tourism, Saint Lucia Tourist Board says, “We welcome the news that Thomas Cook Airlines will be expanding its services with this new flight to Saint Lucia. The specially configured Airbus A330 – 200 aircraft will hold 321 seats and this new direct route opens up our beautiful island to holidaymakers outside of London and the Southeast for the coming winter season as well as new markets in Europe which we would like to explore further.”
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