TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin One million Chinese tourists per year?

Daily Herald story Yikes!! Is today April 1??

In reading the article I can't help but wonder if this was generally known to be in the planning stages by the general public at large or was it one of those well kept secrets? If the groundbreaking is set, approvals had to have been given long before and yet it's only being talked about now?

Where is this going to be located? I hope not near the Belair...

The numbers don't add up for 1 million tourists from China. The number of overnight visitors to Sint Maarten isn't even 1 million right now.

They say the Hotel will be 326 rooms and also 450 apartments for executives?????
How will 360 rooms house 1,000,000 tourists ? If all 326 rooms are occupied 365 days a year 2 people per room that would house 237,980 guests . Where would the other 720,000 stay when on Island??????
The numbers don't add up.
Also why 450 executive apartments?

Apparently yes, according to the story.

The numbers are just nuts. 1 million per year averages 2700 per DAY, which is roughly TEN 747's per day. No way.. As I said, is today April 1??

Wait, I remembered something like this a bit ago and found this story, which is about St. Lucia. Almost the same name??? Today IS April 1???

Yep, next door.

The other failed proposed project sliced the mountain to make room and that's the bare area one sees as they walk the beach towards the west. Guessing you stay at BelAir.

I'm skeptical as well. Time will tell.

States it will be located right next door to the Belaor Beach Hotel.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2...adise-went-bust

A massive Chinese project on cable beach, Nassau Bahamas.

Wow, that's scary. If this is for real, I hope it doesn't end up the same. I hope this isn't some boondoggle just to line someone's pockets.. There's no way any of those numbers make sense.

I'm sure the business and government wizards on St. Maarten would never make the same mistakes or allow these things to happen on our beloved island. Just look at how well and with what speed they handled the final resolution of the Mullet Bay debacle. She says with tongue firmly planted in cheek.......... <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />

So 2700 tourists arrive daily and each stays one week, that adds about 19,000 people to a country with a current population less than 40,000. Then add a supporting population of significance because the 19K will eat, sightsee, buy things, etc., etc.
We will probably be able to get 5 or 6 more years of visiting before nobody but Chinese and locals are on our favorite island.

The proposed project will replace the old Barbaron hotel project. It appears that it will occupy a significant portion of the beach west of the Belair and in effect take out another "public" beach in St Maarten. You can look up Barbaron SXM on line and see the land the project occupies. Unfortunately,we will be looking out our balcony at it.

The only thing that would make this very attractive is if it were a convention center hotel, but it does not appear to be. The proposal is bizarre, to say the least.

Paid off.

OMG! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Yikes.gif" alt="" />

My thoughts, too.....

Please say this is an April Fool joke!

Agree. A million people from anywhere would swamp the island in a bad way. One would think the Dutch govt would have a say in the matter as well. As for the Bahamas project, I was told 70% of the construction workers were flown in from China.

Lots of Chinese financed Caribbean projects going on or on the books - Antigua, Trinidad, Jamaica, Cuba to name a few
Several of them promise to make that island a caribbean hub for Chinese industry

This will be more of the same - Chinese money, probably Chinese labour, not sure how much really trickles into the local economy

The million people a yr - do the politician's really hear themselves when they speak outload?

Having said that - that makes two new P'burg area hotel projects announced - Sunwing's and now this project
If 600+ rooms in total, turning over wkly, 2 per room, that's 1200+ new people per week flying in and out - that's over 6 737's a week from somewhere

J&B

I've been involved in researching this almost all day, and of all the strange stories I've seen about SXM since I started "SXM Weekly News" 20+ years ago, this is THE strangest of all. Gawd. I think time lapse photography will show the building sink or the beach under it wash away or both. Maybe the Caribbean Lottery should have a When Will It Go game focused on this. Or maybe a Jimmy Buffett song!

That's only 62400 people per year. A long way from a million. It will take about 14 every day. Can't imagine what the airport or Maho Beach will look like.

I did look up Barbaron - amazing what lives forever on the net!

The Barbaron was to be 167 units and 6 stories - the Pearl story says 326 + 450 units - 776 units and the pic shows about 12 stories

WOW - by comarison almost makes you wish the Barbaron had been built - almost

J&B

Agreed, totally bizarre story.

For comparison purposes, Wikipedia says the island got 1.8 million cruise passengers and .5 million passengers via the airport in 2013. Of course, that's not always the most accurate source, but it does give at least some idea of the size of current tourism.

There was so much that was weird in that article...the Chinese promising other water sources for agriculture....which would be? And electrical upgrades that don't rely on petroleum? (This from a country known for its lack of environmental protection and terrible pollution of its own land.)

A negotiation process where the Chinese spoke no English, and their representative (from Turkey, was it?) spoke no Chinese. I know it's common to have a translator for international business, but did the SXM government have a representative that spoke Chinese?

And no reporting of what responses the audience at the hearing got to its legitimate questions, although I suspect the average citizen doesn't get heard often anyway.

I understand that the island relies on tourism and needs to advance the industry, but it seems amazing the the leaders could be gullible enough to believe what's been promised. So who's going to pocket money on this deal?

Agreed, everything about the article makes zero sense.

Maybe there will be some authentic Chinese restaurants on the island. And I can't imagine how driving will be on the island, if you know what I mean.

It would take multiple 787s from Beijing and Shanghai daily year round to make this happen. It is more more likely that there will be a three-foot blizzard with temperatures near 0 F. tomorrow in SXM. Not bloody likely.

Interesting. I wonder if this is related?

We just booked our SXM vacation for January. I remember how we felt when the Barbaron project initially gouged out the hillside next to the Belair. If this proves to be legitimate it would have a huge negative impact on Little Bay area.

The Daily Herald doesn't seem totally convinced either

1 million Chinese is an insignificant number when you have a population of a few Billion!

Insignificant number to them, maybe. To SXM, it is huge and totally unmanageable.

"the additional... to SXm is not insurmountable" this article reads. Well, the poor Belair people. What about the impact on them? Looks like SXM will go the way of Hawaii soon.

The increased traffic will take a toll on cruise ship visitors that have already peaked. People on the French side will stop coming over except to work because of the traffic. People will not travel far at night, if at all.Jeannie's business will flourish as nobody will want to go to the market. Local Chinese markets will close because the bilingual families that run them will all get good jobs with the new businessmen.
Maybe a causeway from the airport to Little Bay?

I can't even imagine the roads with that many cars.

It sounds like most people on this thread believes they could run the island better than the current leaders in St. Maarten so I am curious to hear the other side of the story. Can anyone tell me why the leaders would want to allow this to happen and completely ruin and destroy their island? Are they doing it for the fun of it or is there a thought that they are trying to do better for their people and their island?

Some pure speculation. Once the hotel is built, perhaps it will make SXM an ''asian-friendly'' island, and the million includes people staying at other hotels as well, plus ''asian-friendly'' cruises. Chinese, who still prefer their kids to marry other Chinese, have what they call Love Boat cruises, where singles are encouraged to meet for prospective marriage. The Caribbean is perfect for that. And other Asians, Japanese, are likely to follow. So the numbers seem high, but with overflow to other hotels, and specialty cruises, the number may be high, but not unrealistic. Especially with other Chinese projects on other islands to include on cruise stops. Again, purely speculation, and a few Asian friends who told me about the Love Boat thing. Picture two or more cruise ships of 6K passengers on days--all Asian tourists--using the hotel pool and amenities. Like Atlantis in the Bahamas brings in cruise people on day-passes.