The Saint Lucia Tourism Authority (SLTA) is partnering with its United Kingdom office to host a number of UK-based events agents in Saint Lucia. The goal is to market Saint Lucia as a Meetings, Incentives, Conference and Events (MICE) destination.
MICE tourism brings together large groups of professionals in one location to engage in recreational activities and complete their work tasks at conferences.
Iana Fevriere-Jacobs, the SLTA’s Sales and Marketing Manager at the UK Office, says the goal is to reposition Saint Lucia as a MICE Destination. “So essentially what this is, is finding incentive planners in the UK who have the potential to deliver business to Saint Lucia and hosting them in Saint Lucia to get familiar with the activities, resorts and what we have to offer as a MICE destination,” she explains.
Fevriere-Jacobs says Saint Lucia has received much success with hosting large groups of visitors and has received stellar reviews by agents.
“Feedback from the agent is really amazing. We have people who are really impressed with Saint Lucia. Some of them who never even thought of Saint Lucia as an incentive destination, but who do other islands, are really impressed with the amount of activities we have to do in Saint Lucia and just how varied the product is from smaller boutique hotels to the larger properties like Sugar Beach and The Landings,” she explained.
The SLTA Official says the Tourism Authority has placed a focus on MICE tourism over the last five years as part of the country’s all-inclusive tourism package. At present, she notes, a large group is visiting Saint Lucia.
“We have … only for the last five years actually placed a focus on the MICE Industry. What we did find is even last year, for example, we hosted a MICE farm trip and one of the incentive agents from a really big incentive house in the UK has actually booked a really big group and they’re actually on island now,” she said.
