GREAT BAY--Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunication Grisha Heyliger-Marten told Parliament on Wednesday that the Social Economic Council’s review of the 2025 Soul Beach Music Festival found that the event generated significant economic activity for St. Maarten, with estimated tourism income of up to US$7.26 million during the festival period.
Presenting on the May 2025 event, the minister said the independent SER review confirmed what many businesses experienced on the ground: increased hotel occupancy, stronger car rental demand, more taxi activity, direct local spending, and broad international visibility for St. Maarten during a traditionally slower tourism period.
Heyliger-Marten said the discussion in Parliament was never just about one event, but about how St. Maarten identifies and manages opportunities that can stimulate the economy during slower months and create real benefits for the people.
“Today’s discussion is about more than a festival,” the minister said. “The real conversation we must have is about how we manage opportunity, how we stimulate our economy during the slower months, and how we ensure that our people benefit from the tourism industry that sustains our economy.”
She noted that for most Caribbean destinations, including St. Maarten, the period between May and August is traditionally a slower season for visitor arrivals, with lower hotel occupancy, fewer airline passengers, and reduced activity for tourism-dependent businesses. In that context, the minister said, major destination events are not simply entertainment initiatives, but economic tools used to drive demand when visitor activity would otherwise dip.
According to the minister, Soul Beach presented a strategic opportunity after the event was no longer being held in Aruba. She explained that after learning the festival was leaving Aruba, she personally reached out to founder Mark Adkins to explore the possibility of bringing the event back to St. Maarten, where Soul Beach originally started in 1995 before expanding to other destinations.
Heyliger-Marten said that in discussions with the organizer, she learned Aruba no longer saw the same need for the event because hotel occupancy during that period, particularly around Memorial Day weekend, was already strong. For St. Maarten, however, she said the situation was different and represented an opportunity to bring visitors, spending, and visibility to the island during a softer tourism period.
She told Parliament that St. Maarten moved quickly after discussions with Adkins in late 2024. The organizer visited the island in October 2024 to assess venues and the island’s tourism infrastructure, and an official proposal followed in November. By December 2024, with the approval of the Council of Ministers and support from the Minister of Finance, government agreed to provide US$500,000 in support to help secure the event for the island.
Heyliger-Marten acknowledged that the opportunity came with short notice and was not part of the normal 2024 budget cycle, but said government acted within the legal framework available to capture an event that had the potential to generate economic activity during a quieter season.
“When the opportunity arose for St. Maarten to host the festival again, it came with relatively short notice and therefore had not been anticipated within the 2024 budget cycle,” the minister said. “The approach taken to assemble the necessary funding was admittedly somewhat unconventional. However, unconventional does not mean improper.”
She argued that leadership sometimes requires acting when opportunities emerge outside of a normal planning cycle, particularly when they have the potential to create work and income for the people of St. Maarten.
The minister told Parliament that the SER report and supporting stakeholder feedback showed that the event had measurable benefits for the local economy. Among the findings she highlighted were hotel occupancy increases ranging from 10 percent to 35 percent, a 24 percent increase in room nights based on Expedia data compared with the same period in 2024, car rental demand increases of between 27 percent and 50 percent, and a roughly 25 percent increase in taxi activity during the festival period.
She also said the promoters spent approximately US$525,100 directly with local vendors, contractors, and service providers, including transportation, sanitation, security, catering, production, decor, insurance, venue support, and other operational services.
For the minister, that local spending was one of the clearest indicators that the event produced direct value. She said the money was not concentrated in one part of the economy, but circulated across several sectors, supporting the very businesses that tend to feel the slowdown first when tourism begins to soften.
“Before a single visitor even arrived, money was already circulating within our economy,” Heyliger-Marten said, adding that the spending created contracts, invoices, work hours, and opportunities for local businesses and workers.
She further emphasized that the event’s impact went beyond direct spending and visitor activity. In addition to tourism income, she said the event delivered major exposure for the island through digital marketing, influencer content, and U.S. radio promotion.
According to the minister, Soul Beach generated more than 24 million digital impressions, with estimated equivalent advertising value between US$800,000 and US$1.5 million. She said the festival also placed St. Maarten before major U.S. audiences through promotion on urban and R&B radio stations in cities such as New York, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Charlotte, and Washington, D.C.
Heyliger-Marten told Parliament that this visibility aligned with the ministry’s broader strategy of increasing St. Maarten’s presence in the U.S. market through influencer activity, organic content, and destination storytelling. She said Soul Beach amplified that strategy by pushing St. Maarten into the social media feeds, travel content, and conversations of millions of potential visitors.
“This did not happen by accident,” she said. “It is part of a deliberate strategy we have been pursuing to strengthen St. Maarten’s presence in the U.S. market through digital influencers and organic content. What the Soul Beach Music Festival did was amplify that strategy in a major way.”
She added that the value of that visibility continues long after the event itself, as social media content, destination searches, travel recommendations, and user-generated content continue circulating online.
At the same time, the minister made clear that the SER placed an important qualification on the headline economic figure. The council found that the US$7.26 million estimate should be treated as a maximum indicative figure, since it was based on the assumption that all 2,556 visitors stayed for the full five-day festival period. Because ticket purchases included single-day, three-day, and four-day passes, the SER said the actual average length of stay could not be fully verified.
Using a more conservative three-day stay scenario, the SER recalculated tourism income at approximately US$4.36 million. Even under that lower estimate, combined with the direct local operational spending, the report still pointed to a materially positive economic impact.
Heyliger-Marten argued that whether one looked at the full five-day estimate or the more conservative three-day scenario, the central point remained the same: the event generated millions of dollars in economic activity during a period when the tourism sector would normally be quieter.
She also said the SER’s review validated what many people already felt on the ground. Hotels were fuller, car rental companies were busier, taxi drivers made more trips, and local vendors saw more business. She said those outcomes matter in practical terms because they translate into wages, bill payments, and income for families across the island.
The minister also addressed criticism surrounding the government’s support for the event and the procedures used. She said the SER review identified data gaps and recommended stronger documentation, more lead time, clearer budgetary procedures, standardized data collection, and more consistent economic impact assessments for future major events.
Heyliger-Marten said those recommendations are being taken seriously and will help strengthen how incidental subsidies and large-scale tourism events are managed going forward.
“The SER review was independent, objective and thorough,” the minister said. “It confirmed the positive economic activity generated by the event, identified areas where our systems can improve, and provided recommendations that strengthen governance. Importantly, we are acting on those recommendations.”
Among the changes she outlined were the development of a formal written policy for incidental subsidies and making economic impact assessments a standard requirement for major events receiving government support. She said these improvements are not an admission that anything was done improperly, but reflect the government’s responsibility to continuously strengthen its systems and improve transparency.
She also noted that the debate around Soul Beach should not ignore a broader concern: the importance of protecting St. Maarten’s reputation as a destination for investment, events, and business. The minister warned that when political disagreements spill publicly into attacks on private partners or create the impression of instability, it can discourage promoters, investors, airlines, and other partners from doing business with the country.
“When political disagreements spill into the public in a way that targets private partners, it does not hurt the minister, it does not hurt government, it hurts the country,” Heyliger-Marten said. “It creates uncertainty. It makes investors hesitant. It makes promoters consider other destinations.”
She stressed that accountability remains essential in a democracy, but said it must be exercised responsibly, with full awareness that St. Maarten’s reputation has real economic consequences.
The minister also defended the wider value of destination events, arguing that Caribbean countries routinely use major cultural and entertainment productions to stimulate tourism during weaker months rather than waiting passively for visitors to arrive. She pointed to examples across the region where destinations use festivals and cultural events to extend visitor activity beyond the traditional high season.
For St. Maarten, she said, Soul Beach helped fill hotel rooms that might otherwise have remained empty, created work for taxi drivers and hospitality staff, and brought added business to restaurants, rental companies, vendors, and other tourism-linked sectors during May, a period when visitor arrivals typically begin to slow.
Closing her presentation, Heyliger-Marten said the central lesson is that St. Maarten must continue building a stronger framework for attracting and managing opportunities that create measurable value for the country, while also improving governance and oversight around such initiatives.
“This is not about a festival,” she said. “It is about how we position St. Maarten for opportunity, investment and sustainable economic growth.”
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