June 12--ST. THOMAS -- V.I. Tourism Commissioner Beverly Nicholson-Doty told a crowd of tourism industry professionals Tuesday that increased demand for travel to the Virgin Islands has led Delta to add more flights to St. Thomas.
At Tuesday's Destination Symposium, organized each year by the USVI Hotel and Tourism Association, the department gave an hour-long presentation providing updates on the government's strategies to market and advertise the territory.
"Airlift has been a big focus for me personally," Nicholson-Doty told The Daily News after the presentation.
She said she makes it a priority to have sit-down meetings with all the airlines that come into the territory at least once, if not twice, a year.
About two weeks ago, she had a meeting with Delta, and they told her about their decision to expand service to St. Thomas. Delta does not fly to St. Croix.
Traditionally, Delta cuts back its flights by two a week from about August to late November, Nicholson-Doty said.
"For the first time in years, they are not going to do that," she said.
Additionally, the winter schedule for Delta typically is staggered with a daily flight seven days a week and a second flight five days a week. This winter, both flights will be seven days a week, Nicholson-Doty said.
On top of that good news, Delta also is moving a Saturday-only direct flight from JFK Airport in New York to St. Thomas to a daily flight for the upcoming winter season.
As for other airlift to the territory, Nicholson-Doty said JetBlue has added another flight from Puerto Rico to St. Croix, bringing another 700 seats to the island per week.
She said she also is working closely with regional carriers Cape Air and Seaborne Airlines to increase capacity in the Caribbean region. The local airlines can be used to connect the territory to other markets by being the link to international airlines that do not fly directly to the Virgin Islands, she said.
Nicholson-Doty said the boost in airlift is attributable to good communication with the airlines and good marketing strategies that have led to increased demand for travel to the territory year round.
Continuing to promote the "no passport required" concept and partnering with national and regional organizations pooling resources to market the Caribbean as a whole have also been effective, she said.
"All of these things combined help to bring awareness of the brand," Nicholson-Doty said.
At Tuesday's presentation, many questions for the department focused on how the government plans to continue its marketing and advertising efforts with a severely reduced budget.
Deputy Tourism Commissioner Chantal Figueroa said the department currently is working on a comprehensive social media strategy. Tourism's website had more than 1 million visitors from October to May, an increase of about 351,000, Figueroa said. The government agency also is active on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pintrest but wants to fine-tune the way social media is used to be the most effective.
Media exposure is another way that the department is doing more with less. By meeting with journalists, and bringing them to the territory -- with help from local hotels and airlines that donate rooms and tickets -- the territory can get a lot of press without paying for an ad campaign.
The 38 percent budget cut the Tourism Department endured for the current fiscal year reduced the sales team in the states by half, Tourism Sales Director Kay Milliner-Kitchens said. To continue to cover areas of the country, the existing staff will travel to a region and in just a few days make about 200 sales calls to travel agents and booking agents, she said.
So far this fiscal year, the sales team has made 5,300 sales calls and attended about 51 trade shows to promote the territory as a destination.
"We are very active and visible in the marketplace," Milliner-Kitchens said.
Milliner-Kitchens said she is looking at a different strategy when it comes to trade shows, considering dropping them in favor of offering in-depth seminars and workshops to educate travel agents on the U.S. Virgin Islands and all it has to offer. Allegra Kean-Moorehead, director of communications for the department, said Tourism continues to improve the product at home by offering customer service training to taxi drivers, food and beverage workers and others in the hospitality industry.
Tourism also had a successful territorywide clean up effort as part of National Travel and Tourism Week in May, according to Kean-Moorehead.
"It was a great event, and we want to partner up with local organizations and keep the program going," she said.
Nicholson-Doty said that moving into the next year, the department will continue to increase demand for travel to the territory and continue to improve the territory's tourism product.
"A lot of our focus in the next year is going to be on our internal product," she said.
- Contact Aldeth Lewin at 714-9111 or email [email protected].
Copyright 2013 - The Virgin Islands Daily News, St. Thomas
