SHTA appreciates the response the CBCS provided to The Daily Herald. We hope that everyone takes the time to read the article and take to heart what is being said. The CBCS is quite clear in the economic impact of getting this critical statistic of tourism expenditure wrong.
It seems like there is some need for additional clarity on the SHTA’s calculation. Please allow us to clarify. There are 2 official sources for direct tourism expenditure; The first is the CBCS balance of payments statistics report, it contains a line item “Travel Exports” This figure is reported quarterly, and can be downloaded here and reflects direct tourism expenditure.
https://www.centralbank.cw/statistics-dashboards/external-sector-statistics/balance-of-payments
The second source for the data is published by STAT in their tourism exit survey report. The report for 2024, to date, has not been published. The reports for 2021-2022-2023 are harder to locate on the STAT website. The SHTA will make these available on their website SHTA.com.
We quote from the Daily Herald:
“a standardized methodology: the average tourist spending per night per country is multiplied by the number of visitors from each country and their average length of stay.”-” the “underlying data, average spending, visitor counts, and length of stay, is sourced from official authorities in Sint Maarten.
When the methodology is applied to the data published by the official authority and compared to the travel exports of the CBCS the difference becomes evident. Below is a table showing 21-23 and estimated 2024. There is a clear difference between the expenditure figure reported by STAT and the one reported by the CBCS.
See relevant document below.