USVI Is Booming.

The US Virgin Islands was the fastest-growing territory for total capacity in the Americas between 2019 and 2021, growing total departure seats by +35.8%. It was also one of only three destinations in the region to grow capacity in this period, alongside Puerto Rico and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Tourism Commissioner Joseph Boschulte tells Routes how the US Virgin Islands has worked with airlines to thrive.
You have bucked the trend and grown capacity since 2019—how have you done that?

We have taken advantage of a unique situation. Much of the world was shut down and we'd never seen it before where you couldn't leave your house for three, six or eight months. But that didn't stop people from wanting to vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
We've been fortunate that the United States has been ahead of the curve in terms of its reaction to the COVID virus. Historically 90%+ of our traffic has been US travelers and they returned well before most of the rest of the world.
Plus those US travelers have the understanding that if they do test positive here, they’re under the US flag. So the level of worry or frustration about getting stuck somewhere, or having problems with travel insurance, may be less because it is a US territory. So if you come in from Texas, the CDC is the federal regulator for health in the Virgin Islands too.
We in the US Virgin Islands remain open and committed to safe travel during the pandemic and beyond. Our government has taken the path of learning to manage COVID—as opposed to running from it and closing every time we see a spike.
We stayed very committed to the information that we were receiving from health officials and the CDC to follow protocols such as masks and social distancing. We also opened a travel portal which provided information to assist with contact tracing which helped the department for health, but it also reassured travelers that everyone else on their plane or resort had been screened.
How have you communicated this to airlines and engaged their interest?

One of the things we came to a reality check with early on is that we are three little dots in the middle of the Caribbean, so we don't have the leverage of some of our Caribbean competitors. We don't have 15,000 hotel rooms.

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