The St. Maarten Hospitality and Trade Association (SHTA) has expanded its online database of Online Travel Agents (OTA’s) with an additional 100 operators in an attempt to stimulate the tourism driven St. Maarten economy. The online OTA Index is especially intended to assist smaller tourism – related companies that have limited means for online presence or business trips abroad.
The expansion of the OTA Index was announced at SHTA’s Annual General Membership meeting at Carl’s Unique Inn on June 19th, celebrating the association’s 55th birthday. During the event, 33 new member businesses were welcomed to the association, amongst which three hotel properties.
The OTA index is a global collection of OTA’s active in the hotel, activity, restaurant and villa segments, intended to support the online presence of St. Maarten tourism companies and that of the destination as a whole. Expedia, Booking.com, Viator and Tripadvisor are amongst the most familiar ones, but the field is far larger, with 330 represented in the OTA Index. In the 2025 SHTA OTA Index update, amongst others the villa category has been reinforced and a “MICE” segment with fifteen OTA’s active in the field of meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions has been added.
Many OTA’s differ in their focus on specific interests, target audiences, niche markets, countries, price points, languages or specialized purposes through dedicated apps, websites, and platforms. OTA’s have surpassed traditional tour operators and travel agents in global booking volumes for several years now. GlobalData.com assesses the OTA market is projected to reach a global value of $765 billion in 2025, with growth expected to continue to $1.2 trillion by 2027.
SHTA aims to equip its tourism members with the tools and resources they need to stay competitive and capitalize on emerging opportunities. SHTA expects the OTA index to be beneficial for small hotels, restaurants, shops, villas, tour and activity companies. Limited budget and personnel often prevent these entities from connecting to tour operators, travel agents and representatives of OTAs in person or to make visits to conferences abroad.