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Can a slew of ultra-luxury hotels, more weekly direct
flights, and government incentives “make” a high-end destination? On St. Lucia, ambitious investors are banking
on it.
As we wander a densely thicketed path, sheltered from the sun by rows of bamboo with trunks as stout as baseball
bats, one thought recurs: St. Lucia smells. It reeks, actually, like a carton of rotten eggs. This isn't exactly
unexpected, though, considering that our destination today is, well, a noxious pit. We cross a footbridge spanning a
small stream and make our way up a hill until we reach a point directly overlooking a virtual moonscape. Qualibou,
billed as the "world's only drive-in volcano," is an awesome sight. Steam rises from craters; pools of black liquid
like vats of squid ink roil. Once, you could walk across the caldera, but not any longer. About 20 years ago, we're
told, a guide decided to demonstrate the integrity of the ground by jumping up and down on it. He fell through a
hole of his own making, and when he was pulled out—alive, amazingly—he was horribly burned. "Some people," says our
guide, gesturing at the hissing earth, "believe there is a god sleeping in there." Presumably, one who doesn't
suffer fools.
Minutes after we leave the volcano, the sulfurous stench is gone, the craters replaced by views of the iconic Gros
and Petit Piton mountains, two almost perfectly triangular peaks that evoke the South Pacific. St. Lucia is
seriously gorgeous, full of waterfalls and tropical rain forests, a place where birds-of-paradise seem to range
freely. Of course, it possesses the standard Caribbean inventory: sand, sun, and, due to its popularity among
honeymooners, probably more French manicures per square mile than anywhere east of Vegas. It also has some of the
most winding roads you'll ever encounter. As my taxi careens from switchback to switchback, I silently recite the
mantra of the whiny child: Are we there yet?
At this stage in the island's development, that question, figuratively speaking, is on a lot of lips. One of the
Lesser Antilles' Windward Islands, St. Lucia is closer to South America than to more easily accessible destinations
like the Bahamas and the Riviera Maya. Until the early 1990's, banana production was the island's leading industry,
but with the phasing out of preferential EU trade agreements looming, the banana trade is in a death spiral. Partly
in response, the St. Lucian government has stepped in to accelerate tourism projects by offering a range of
incentives, including waiving taxes on imported materials used in new hotel construction and giving a rental income
"tax holiday" to buy-to-rent investors. The strategy is working—by the end of 2007, St. Lucia will have gained more
than 1,500 hotel rooms, most of which will cater to the money-is-no-object traveler. (In part because construction
and operating costs are higher here than in many middle-market destinations, almost all new hotels are chasing the
lucrative higher end.) Not coincidentally, many of those rooms will be ready by March, when St. Lucia will be the
home base for the English team in the Cricket World Cup. This event may not stir the hearts of Americans, but for
the 12,000 to 15,000 British holidaymakers who will descend on St. Lucia, and for television viewers worldwide—an
estimated 1.2 billion for the semifinals alone—it's a very big deal indeed.
The boom is resonating across the entire island, from the $165 million Landings resort in the north to the embryonic
Ritz-Carlton (opening 2009) in the south. On the northwest coast, the new five-star Discovery at Marigot Bay aims to
reinvent a once popular but now faded yachting hangout, while the Jade Mountain addition to the Anse Chastanet
Resort—a longtime fixture on practically every Best of the Caribbean list—kicks the luxury bar up at least a notch.
Cotton Bay Village and the still-under-construction Le Paradis are staking out the previously untapped Atlantic side
of the island, underscoring a fairly new phenomenon: even off-the-beaten-track real estate is being scooped up. Last
February, Air Jamaica resumed its thrice-weekly nonstops out of JFK and added a fourth; combine that with daily
direct flights from Atlanta and Miami, and visitors have more inbound options than ever before. All told, it's clear
that something more intoxicating than rum punch—or drive-in volcanoes—is now being served. |
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