Carnival of Soul

Saint Lucia’s upcoming 2020 Jazz Festival, produced in collaboration with New York’s esteemed Jazz at Lincoln Center organization, signals the start of the Caribbean island’s festival season and also highlights what is emerging as a record travel period for the destination.

Scheduled for May 7 through May 9, 2020, the Festival is now in its 28th year and will feature top-shelf modern jazz artists performing in venues across Saint Lucia including The Ramp on Rodney Bay and Gros Islet Park.

This year’s Festival continues an initiative launched last year – the first in which Saint Lucia Tourist Board (SLTB) organizers teamed with Jazz at Lincoln Center – to re-invigorate the event through a return to authentic jazz performances. Saint Lucia was among several Caribbean “jazz” concert series that in recent years to primarily feature popular music acts.

Instead, this year’s Festival is highlighted by jazz legend Chick Corea, who will perform with Carlitos Del Puerto and Marcus Gilmore. Also slated is a celebration of legendary hard bop trumpeter Roy Hargrove by Willie Jones III and Renée Neufville. Alphonso Horne and the Gotham Kings, Ruben Fox’s London Brass featuring Theon Cross and Mark Kavuma and Maher Beauroy are also scheduled to perform.

Citing the “successful” inaugural year of Saint Lucia’s Festival partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, Dominic Fedee, Saint Lucia’s minister of tourism, said the Festival’s return to a focus on jazz music revitalized the event and helped generate a visitor surge in 2019.

“After [nearly] 30 years of doing this the festival grew so big we started doing a lot of experiment with it,” said Fedee. “We started adding rap and soca and R&B [music.] When we had our first meeting with Jazz at Lincoln Center they said ‘Hey, this is not jazz. You need to come back to basics and be a lot more authentic.’”

As a result, “Saint Lucia is back to being the number one jazz festival in the Caribbean,” said Fedee. “There’s been a lot of passion, a lot of labor and a lot of joy in making sure we tell people through music and through this festival that Saint Lucia is the most idyllic island destination in the world.”

In addition to the jazz performances, the 2020 Festival will feature “Artists In Education” initiatives including masterclasses, professional development and live performance collaborations with Saint Lucia School of Music students and local jazz artists.

“Jazz like most music of the African diaspora, has the power to bring people of all ages together,” said Cat Henry, Jazz at Lincoln Center’s vice president of concerts and touring.

“It breakdown barriers and teaches tolerance and is an invitation to share in an authentic, infectious joy,” said Henry. “We celebrate our collaboration with the Saint Lucia Tourist Board. We have something for everyone, from the serious jazz fan to the first-time island visitor who is looking for a profound good time.”

Saint Lucia’s 2020 Jazz Festival will coincide with surging visitor arrivals for the Caribbean nation.

“We’re on a high at the moment,” said Fedee. “This year for the first time in our recording of tourism statistics we reported over 400,000 [overnight, land-based] arrivals. Americans contributed significantly to our growth; this market grew robustly by nine and one-half percent,” he said.

“When we put together hotel guests and cruise stays and yachting visitors, we are at 1.2 million visitors,” in 2019 Fedee said, representing a five percent year-over-year increase compared with 2018.

Island Developments

Saint Lucia is also expanding its hospitality base as arrivals grow, Fedee said. All-inclusive operator AM Resorts will launch a Zoetry resort along with new Dreams and Secrets properties within two years while Hyatt Hotels & Resorts is planning a planned a 780-room property on Saint Lucia.

“In the next 10 years we should have 3,000 hotel rooms coming to Saint Lucia to expand our room stock significantly, bringing tremendous value to our destination,” said Fedee.

Saint Lucia is also moving forward on a major cruise port development. “We are getting ready to sign a memorandum of understanding with Carnival Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines to build the second-largest cruise port on the island in the south, near the airport,” said Fedee.

“This is to buttress the homeporting business. We’re making sure the cruise port and the airport are part of the same complex; it’s going to be one of the most amazing facilities you’ll see in the Caribbean,” he said.

Attractive Events

SLTB is also working to re-focus the island’s tourism experiences on authentic local experiences. “We are very, very proud of what’s in Saint Lucia,” said Fedee. “We’re making sure we’ve beefed up the experiences, to make sure that when people come they can do bamboo rafting, that they can do a Carnival tour [and] have a new rum distillery experience as well,” he said.

“All of this is being planned for the comprehensive renewal of Saint Lucia’s tourism product. We are ensuring we sustain our architecture and village tourism, so that when you come you see authenticity.”