PHILIPSBURG—Diamond Resorts in St. Maarten is expected to officially reopen its Flamingo and Royal Palm Beach Resorts in June next year with completely remodelled facilities according to the company’s local representatives.
Minister of Tourism, the honourable Stuart Johnson, led a delegation including two colleague Ministers from the Government of St. Maarten on a visit to Diamond Resort’s two properties on Friday morning.
The tour was aimed at getting updates on progress being made to the reconstruct the hurricane devastated facilities. Accompanying Johnson were Emil Lee, Minister of Labour Health and Social Affairs, Minister of Justice Cornelius De Weever and Miklos Giterson Minister of Public Housing, Physical Planning, Environment and Infrastructure along with May-Ling Chun Director of the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau.
The Ministry of Tourism has embarked on a campaign since the beginning of Johnson’s term as TEATT Minister to reach out to hotels as the goal for the government of St. Maarten where it concerns revitalizing the economy includes the full restoration of all resorts.
Johnson first visited the two resorts in October last year and met with Mervin Le Blanc. The resort was still undergoing gutting of rooms and cleaning resulting from property damage during hurricanes Irma and Maria.
At that time, Johnson had expressed his hope to Le Blanc that local contractors would be allowed to work when it was time to rebuild. On Friday Le Blanc was able to show the new room designs to the delegation and give them an update on the progress being made. According to Johnson, the anticipation for 2020 is that St. Maarten will be experiencing a significant spike on economic activities as the construction of several hotels including Planet Hollywood would be well on the way. “There are also going to be several hotels coming online, and this is a significant boost in economic activity to bring us close to pre-Irma type economic activity going into the 2019/2020 tourism season,” said Johnson.
