More Than ‘Nice’: St. Kitts and Nevis Makes Its Pitch to the People Who Sell the Caribbean
For a few days, Saint Kitts and Nevis is not simply selling the Caribbean dream, it is hosting some of the people who help decide where travellers experience it.
The American Society of Travel Agents Caribbean Showcase has brought travel advisors, tourism leaders, suppliers and industry partners to the Federation, placing Saint Kitts and Nevis at the centre of conversations about how the Caribbean is marketed and sold to travellers around the world.
For the host destination, however, the value of the Showcase extends well beyond the conference room.
Travel advisors wield considerable influence over where their clients vacation, where they stay and the experiences they book. Bringing them to Saint Kitts and Nevis creates an opportunity that no brochure, sales presentation or advertising campaign can quite replicate: the chance for them to experience the destination for themselves.
Over the course of the Showcase, advisors are getting a firsthand introduction to the breadth of the Federation’s tourism product from its landscapes, history and cuisine to its culture, attractions, experiences and, importantly, its people. Every experience has the potential to become a recommendation when they return home—and every recommendation has the potential to translate into a future booking.
There is also a wider significance to hosting an event of this nature. At a time when Caribbean destinations are competing for airlift, investment and visitor spend, Saint Kitts and Nevis has an opportunity to strengthen relationships with the international travel trade, demonstrate its ability to host major industry events and position itself more firmly in the minds of the professionals who connect destinations with travellers.
The real impact, then, will not necessarily be measured by how many delegates arrived for ASTA this week. It will be seen in what happens after they leave—how many return, how many recommend Saint Kitts and Nevis and, ultimately, how many travellers they inspire to follow.
The importance of that opportunity was not lost on Tourism Minister Hon. Marsha Henderson, who used her remarks at Sunday’s opening ceremony at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort to make a direct pitch to the travel professionals gathered in the room.
Her message was simple: experience Saint Kitts and Nevis for yourself, understand what sets it apart, and then take that story back to your clients.
“Nice is not why we travel,” Henderson told delegates. “We travel for the beauty that captivates us, experiences that linger and moments that become stories worth telling.”
And if Saint Kitts and Nevis has the rare opportunity this week to turn travel sellers into first-hand ambassadors for the destination, Henderson made it clear that the Federation intends to use it.
“Out of every destination you could have chosen, you chose us,” she said. “And this is my promise to you: before this week is done, you will know exactly why that was the right call.”
Henderson acknowledged the influence of the people sitting before her.
“When a client decides to spend their money and their memories, you are the trusted voice in the room,” she said, arguing that a travel advisor’s recommendation can be more powerful than “any advertisement we could ever buy” or billboard a tourism authority could purchase.
But earning that recommendation means giving advisors something compelling to sell.
Henderson’s pitch centred heavily on one word: unspoiled.
“Every island in this region has a beach. Every island in this region has blue waters. Every island has a warm breeze,” she said. “But hear me now… We are one of the last truly unspoiled destinations left in the Caribbean.”
For Henderson, that means a destination where mountains and ocean can occupy the same view, where rainforest-covered volcanic landscapes rise behind beaches and where the natural environment remains a defining part of the visitor experience.
It also means experiences that are difficult to replicate elsewhere.
She pointed to the St. Kitts Scenic Railway, where tracks that once transported sugar cane now carry visitors through parts of the island, and Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, the Federation’s UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Your clients cannot ride that train in Cancun. They cannot ride it in Punta Cana,” she said. “In fact, they can only ride it here in St. Kitts.”
Her list continued: hiking, ziplining through the canopy, dune buggy adventures, catamaran trips between St. Kitts and Nevis and ending the day with freshly caught seafood by the sea.
“You can drive around this entire island in one afternoon, but your clients can stay a week and still beg for more,” Henderson said.
“Small island, big story.”
Rather than positioning the Federation for a single type of visitor, Henderson encouraged advisors to think about the different travellers for whom Saint Kitts and Nevis could provide the right fit.
There is the couple searching for a destination wedding their guests will still remember decades later; the family looking for an active vacation; the wellness traveller who would rather hear the ocean than a crowd; and the curious visitor who wants to return home with more than photographs.
“The curious soul who wants to come home with a story, a flavour, a friendship—and yes, a tan as well,” she said.
It is a pitch built less around simply seeing Saint Kitts and Nevis and more around experiencing it.
“Taste it,” Henderson urged, pointing to saltfish and johnny cakes from a local kitchen.
“Walk it,” she continued, referencing centuries of history at Brimstone Hill.
And then, “Feel it”—the warmth of Kittitian and Nevisian people that, she argued, goes “far deeper than any marketing can.”
It reflects a broader evolution in Caribbean tourism, where destinations are increasingly seeking to distinguish themselves beyond the traditional sun, sea and sand formula by putting greater emphasis on culture, food, history, nature, adventure and meaningful connections with local communities.
If Henderson wanted delegates to leave the opening ceremony remembering one phrase, there was little ambiguity about what it should be.
“Saint Kitts and Nevis is the Caribbean’s hidden gem.”
“This is your pitch. This is your catchphrase. This is your closing line on every phone call,” she told the advisors.
For a destination trying to distinguish itself within one of the world’s most recognisable tourism regions, the positioning is deliberate.
Millions of travellers believe they have already seen the Caribbean, Henderson argued, yet there are still places and experiences within the region waiting to be discovered.
“You are standing in what many of your clients are still searching for,” she told delegates.
The challenge for Saint Kitts and Nevis is turning that sense of discovery into bookings.
Henderson promised the travel trade that the Federation would continue working to make the destination easier to sell through increased access, distinctive experiences and relationships with advisors that extend beyond the Showcase.
“We will keep making St. Kitts and Nevis easier to sell,” she said, promising “more access, more authentic experiences your clients cannot get anywhere else, and a partnership that keeps working long after the lights go out after this Showcase.”
Over the course of the ASTA Caribbean Showcase, delegates have an opportunity to move beyond presentations and sales pitches and experience elements of the destination firsthand.
That may ultimately prove to be the most valuable part of hosting the event.
A travel advisor who has stood at Timothy Hill, travelled the island, tasted its food, encountered its history and interacted with its people is no longer simply selling a destination from a brochure.
They have a story of their own to tell.
“By the time you leave us,” Henderson told delegates, “I’m hoping that you will be recommending a place you have unlocked yourself.”
And perhaps that is the bigger opportunity presented by hosting ASTA.
For several days, Saint Kitts and Nevis has the attention of people whose business is helping others decide where in the world they should go next.
The Federation’s task is to ensure that when those advisors return to their desks and a client asks for somewhere Caribbean, somewhere memorable and perhaps somewhere they haven’t already been, Saint Kitts and Nevis comes immediately to mind.
Not simply because it was “nice,” but because they experienced enough of it to know what makes it different.
