Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Gov’t , Sandals partner in marketing initiative

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is much on the Sandals agreement that has to be clarified.

It is important that St. Lucian officials agree on the messaging within the advertisements and not just the advertising scheduling. Mae Wayne who I think is on the Tourist Board should be key in this decision making.

Sandals’ advertising normally covers ALL their properties in the Caribbean i.e. Jamaica, Turks, St. Lucia, Antigua. It is important that this c-op advertising focuses specifically on ST. LUCIA. The question also is whether or not this advertising will be of benefit to all St. Lucian hotels or just cut to fit Sandals’ marketing program.
This money will be wasted or only to Sandals’ benefit if you run with THE SAME CRITERIA USED FOR SANDAL ADVERTISEMENTS AND MESSAGING.
The main reason for working with Sandals is that I assume that they will be placing a certain amount of cash into the advertising program so that the total program would be (for example) $4 million instead of just St. Lucia’s $2 million intervention. This would go a long way but you must ascertain whether or not Sandals are simply just running a program based only on St. Lucia’s support.

July 14, 2009 at 8:03 AM
Anonymous said...

One of the other advantages of this co-op effort is that you will be piggybacking on Sandals’ volumn discounts so get more bang for your buck. In fact in the early days of this UWP Administration I had suggested that this Administration talk to Sandals to work in this co-operative manner. The important thing to remember is that “the devil is in the details”. Sandals and Butch Stewart are looking after their interest and St. Lucia is only secondary to their bottom line. This was always one of the reasons successive Governments in St. Lucia ran into trouble. They thought that listening to advise from individuals like Michael Chastanet guaranteed success for economic programs. The fact is that Michael looks after Michael and St. Lucia was only secondary. We need a hundred Michaels or Butchs in St. Lucia but not running Govt policy.
It is also very important that the programs outlined above are being monitored on a monthly basis for feedback. Time after time St. Lucia’s policies, in just about every sphere, are announced but we never receive feedback. This feedback is required for two reasons (1) to determine if we get our bang for the buck at the end of the program but more importantly (2) to make adjustments to the program during its lifetime so as to maximize the expenditure of $2,000,000 from the National Purse.
Politicians from both parties believe and voters support the liberal position that money spent from the public purse comes from the politicians themselves or the Government when in fact - it comes from the PEOPLE THEMSELVES. It is a concept that our politicians promote as in “I am giving you the people $XXXXXXX”. The fact is you are taking the money FROM the people and allocating it in ways that should improve their quality of life. In most cases this does not happen and there is no feedback on the value of the expenditure.
Because they do not want to go against the Government or put their heads above the parapet most in the SLHTA and Government will probably just approve these moves, say a few words before the program is implemented and wait in a docile manner for the manna to fall from heaven. The problem in St. Lucia now is not just about political Administrations and their philosophies, policies or management but also about the incompetence of associations like the SLHTA, Bar Association, Chamber of Commerce, etc in coming forward , taking positions and sticking to their guns for the benefit of all St. Lucia.
For example are there any figures outlining what is expected from the programs above. What are they to achieve ?
20% increase in stayover arrivals ?
$9 million increased in Government Revenue ?
X% increase in occupancy from hotels other than Sandals ?
Increase in stayover arrivals and in what time period ?
What are the feedback tools being used so that we will know within one week of the program if the phone lines are heating up with interest from the potential visitors ?
Are the feedback tools being monitored by SANDALS or a Government Agency ?

We already forget Rochamel in which a few investors bamboozled a set of inexperienced politicians and we ended up with a $110 million hole in our budget. Where the bank lending the money were the ones monitoring its usage. This is not anywhere near that figure but let us start to get value for money using good old fashioned techniques. I quarantee you that if that $2,000,000 came from the pockets of the Ministers of Government themselves that good old conservative common sense would prevail and Butch would not spend one cent until he had clarified all the points raised above. Because it is the people’s money paid for in taxes it is not tracked efficiently and feedback obtained.

July 14, 2009 at 8:25 AM
Anonymous said...

For example this is a suggestion for the best use of the $2,000,000 to benefit ALL St. Lucian hotels- Sandals may not like this but I thought this is how the program should be run.

A) Determine from Sandals what is their Media Scheduling in newspapers, magazines, radio and television in our main markets. This serves as the foundation to maximize the reach to benefit ALL St. Lucia.
B) Sandals and St. Lucia approach those media houses (who are all suffering in this downturn, guarantee you that) and bargain for full page, strategically placed articles (all the quality images, etc) on St. Lucia to be run in conjunction with the Sandals’ advertisements.Have the travel writers do Fam trips asap. This reinforces Sandals while promoting St. Lucia for the other hotels.

C) So you open the pages of a newspaper, there is a dynamic article on St. Lucia and two pages later is an advt for Sandals. We get more bang for the buck at a minimal cost to mazimize the dollar value One reinforces the other. Perfect – we all win.

July 14, 2009 at 8:28 AM
Anonymous said...

This is another set of money going to waste. Make that $700,000US. Sandals is going to look after Sandals, and not St.Lucia. In the end its all about a company's bottom line. On a side note, wouldnt this collaboration show some favoritsm towards Sandals in approval of depriving locals from using our beaches at Pigoen Point for example?? I see this as another episode of Chasenet pimping St.Lucia to the foriegners to get screwed once again. Lets not forget what happened when our tax paying dollars went to American Airlines.

July 14, 2009 at 1:18 PM
Anonymous said...

^^^^

Anonymous said...


July 14, 2009 1:18 PM


American has actually double its frequency to St. Lucia. This Winter there will be 2 daily Miami flights and 2 weekly flights from JFK. When American cut capacity was in the fall like all airlines do to all tourist destinations because that is considered the slow period. So stop commenting on things you don't have a clue about. And Sandals has a TV ad only advertising St. Lucia on CNN,ABC etc.

July 16, 2009 at 1:38 AM

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