Saint Lucia: Ernest Hilaire extends warm wishes on occasion of Christmas

Castries, Saint Lucia: The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Tourism, Investment, Creative Industries, Culture and Information of Saint Lucia, Ernest Hilaire, extended warm wishes on the occasion of Christmas and stated Merry Christmas to all Saint Lucians and my constituents of Castries South. 

He shared the heartfelt heart message through his official social media account and mentioned in the statement, “Merry Christmas to all Saint Lucians and my constituents of Castries South. May you have a safe and prosperous Christmas day, and all the best for the new year!”

While dropping a video message for the citizens of Saint Lucia, he stated, in this season of selfless giving, he wished every person of Saint Lucia a heartfelt Merry Christmas. 

Read here the complete statement of Ernest Hilaire:

In this season of giving, I would like to wish every Saint Lucian a heartfelt Merry Christmas and God’s continued blessings to my constituents of Castries South special wishes to you, for the last 12 months we’ve had to battle the after the effects of covid-19 we’ve been tested by the continued increases in the prices of goods and services and the increasing threats to our citizen security and safety despite all of these we’ve had several successes across different Industries in Saint Lucia and we must continue to build into the new year. 

We are a people of great resolve, and we are a people of perseverance, and we have to work together to overcome our challenges. Let us be our Brother’s Keeper as the year comes to an end it is time for us to look back on the successes that we’ve had. 

On the tourism front, we accomplished a lot across the different sub-sectors, we saw the return of several Airlines to our airports, including the return of sun wing from Canada and Virgin Atlantic from the United Kingdom. 

This truly helped bolster our airlift capacity in what has been a profound reborn year after the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, and as much as I made a pledge not to boast about the arrival numbers yet to date, stay-over arrivals in October were almost 290000, which is a mess 60 000 less than our record of 2019.  

This shortfall is due to the lack of air travel capacity in the region since Liat has not recovered from the effects of the pandemic.

Going into the new year, we are committed to rebuilding and growing Regional Air, travel and working alongside any efforts to achieve this goal. 

This is a critical segment of our market, that we need to address at the earliest. Outside of this, the demand for Saint Lucia is on the rise across the world, and we will continue to build on this by increasing our efforts in those markets that have been our greatest contributors and breaking into those that are not usually a great contributors. 

With the growing demand for our Fair Helen and still over arrivals on the rebound, it is critical that solutions benefit more from the tourist dollar my efforts as minister is to ensure that there is greater participation of solutions in the tourism industry this year we launch a community tourism program which is aimed at providing assistance to solutions to encourage local investment in the industry. 

Our philosophy is less leakages and more linkages, making sure that more of the tourism dollar stays in and circulates in our local economy. 

We have built on this by introducing more programs and activities that will get the visitors out of the hotels and villas and into the communities and this is a Testament to the awards that we have won this year once again.

We want both the Caribbean and wool leading honeymoon destinations and, for the first time, the Caribbean’s leading Adventure destination.

As a nation, we must be proud of these achievements our Island offers, several Adventure offerings across its 250th square miles, the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority launched the free pick challenge, which is one of the highlights of our adventure offerings challenging persons to climb our free peaks in one day. 

In addition, we also launched a cab away crawl, which is our national back roll that brings visitors to set several bars across different communities on the Island. 

All of this, topped off with our existing offerings, continue to make our Island a destination to visit time and time again.

This year we also saw the return of several of our cultural showcases, including Carnival emancipation and Junior Creole.

After the hiatus due to the pandemic, it was refreshing to see people safely enjoying these festivities in July our Carnival the season was filled with a mix of national and private events, which gave people so much to choose from this partnership between the public and private sectors highlight the successes, we can gain as a nation when we collaborate on certain initiatives.

We must know that for the first year back, we did not have a carnival feel with all of the usual events, but for sure next year, we will see The Return of the community carnivals, Junior Calypso and soccer Juve and the inter-commercial Calypso.

We will also add components that will enhance the carnival experience and encourage greater participation of people.

While maintaining the cultural aspects of it this year, we also place a bigger emphasis on our emancipation Day festivities, acknowledging and celebrating our ancestors, who toil on our lands to set the foundation for the livelihoods that we have today.

We will also build on the successes of this year’s festivities and create an even larger event for 2023 and 2024.

Further spreading the festivities to other communities across the Island, our aim is to decentralize all national festivities and have activities in our communities, including Junior Creole.

This year the main festivities were in Castries and St Rozelle but ideally

solutions and visitors alike should be able to wake up at 5 am and go along the Island and enjoy our local food and beverage.

These National events are what build us as a nation at the constituency level we have completed the rehabilitation of the marigold Ambassador Joseph ruins which have been in need of repair for many years.

We have solved the water problem in bastard Joseph, and there is now relief as residents can proudly boast that water flows through their pipes.

We’ve just signed a contract for work to commence the completion of the Massachusetts Community Center. We have completed the construction of a number of retaining walls, steps and walkways throughout the constituency.

I am looking forward to the upcoming budget presentation, where I will present a comprehensive report on what has been achieved and what will be done and the coming financial year.

For this Christmas season, we’ve had children’s parties for over 700 children, and we have employed over 200 persons on the cleanup campaign, we are Distributing hampers for the sick and shut-in and the needy and we are also Distributing food vouchers on Sunday, December 18th 

We would have hosted our fruitcake and soil competition in cicero, and on Friday, December 23rd, we hosted our Christmas solo night in Vasa Joseph.  

We have been through a lot we have accomplished a lot, but we must continue to work to create an environment that will benefit our children and their children. 

They are the ones that will benefit from the hard work we put in today let us not fight each other but work together. 

• We must overcome the threats to Citizens’ Safety and Security.

• We must win that fight we risk losing our nature as a peace-loving people and hospitable people, and therefore, we must all commit to working together. 

Merry Christmas, and Lucia, stay safe during the season, and may God bless our beautiful Nation.