By: Amari Chaffer
As we complete our 3rd week on the island, I am beginning to realize how much I am going to miss St. Maarten. From Kimara at the front desk to Andre to Shogun. This island has truly been amazing. This week my group “XY chromosomes” began our campaign project. We will begin interviewing tourists on the island 50 years old and over to get an overview of what they think about the island and why they keep coming back. We want to get an idea of how to attract our target audience to St. Maarten. This will require us to do extensive research. This week we completed our certification in lead generation and crisis research on Sprinklr. Both are immensely helpful research tools, but I will focus on using audience analysis mostly to gain a better understanding of our target audience.
Since being on the island I have met a ton of visitors over the age of 50 who have come and gone. I will never forget John and his wife our first few days here. They were an outgoing couple that gave us a rundown of the island and of Sapphire. They were more focused on drinking and relaxation. Most guests here over 50 are focused on drinking, sitting pool side, and relaxing by the beach. This week we did an excursion called “Rhino Safari.” We had our own motorboats that could fit two people each. I had euphoric feelings racing through the ocean. We rode for miles until we arrived at Creole rock where we got snorkeling gear out and began to look for fish. Once we were done snorkeling, we made our way to lunch, and boy was I hungry. It is something about swimming that makes me extremely hungry. This makes the food 10 times better. While we were racing back to return the Rhino’s I thought about our target audience for the campaign project. The experience was fun for my age group, but I noticed that I did not see lots of people, if any, over the age of 50 there. This let me know that when trying to attract tourists over the age of 50 I will not emphasize activities like Rhino Safari.
On the other hand, our second excursion felt more attractive for tourists over 50 looking to relax, drink and enjoy the island. It was a 2-hour catamaran ride. We cruised around the island drinking endless rum punch, enjoying mystic views, music, and getting to know each other better. We visited Creole Rock again for another unforgettable snorkeling experience. And when I say unforgettable, I mean unforgettable. Taylor’s apple watch slipped off her wrist while we were snorkeling and fell all the way to the bottom of the ocean. After searching for a few minutes, I saw it and took a deep breath before swimming all the way to the bottom to retrieve her watch. I swam 30-40 feet down before I finally felt in the palms of my hands. It took everything in me to get back up to the top before running out of air. Once I made it to the top and returned her watch, I was exhausted. She covered dinner for me the next day which was nice.
To cap the week off we celebrated Kendall’s birthday on Saturday at a rainforest party. It was hosted on top of St. Maarten’s highest mountain. We had to take a ski lift to get to the top. It was amazing. We saw the entire island. I am grateful for every experience I have had on this study abroad and while this upcoming week will sadly be our last, I am going to make the best of it one day at a time.
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