Business View Caribbean - Sept. / Oct. 2014

86 9LUJLQ ,VODQGV 6HSWHPEHU ‡ 2FWREHU ² &DULEEHDQ ‡ %XVLQHVV 9LHZ There are also some other great times to visit. In St. Croix, during April they do a food and wine festival. They’re in their 15th year now, and it’s an incredible experience. We have lots of chefs that are visiting chefs, they do Iron Man with local chefs cooking on the beach. They do a big taste of St. Croix right toward the end of the week. If you are into triathlons, St. Croix has an Ironman qualifier that occurs every May. And St. John does a marathon called “8 Tuff Miles” in February. So it depends on what you are interested in. We try to keep a very updated calendar on our website, because there are the iconic events that happen each year. But there also are events that are added all the time. I think that there are experiences that one should not miss. I believe that if you come to the island of St. Croix, you should definitely get to Buck Island. If you get to St. John, you definitely want to go to Trunk Bay. If you are in St. Thomas, I’m going to encourage you to at least get to Magens Bay. We have the second oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere, one of the few with the sand floors, in our historic district of downtown Charlotte Amalie. Incidentally, we’re having a major facelift being done to our downtown area that will really revitalize the main historic district. Within the town area of Charlotte Amalie, I believe that you have five churches, all of which are more than 100 years old, some much older than that. Cruz Bay is an eclectic little town. You could bump into Kenny Chesney while you are in Cruz Bay. Unique stores. I certainly would encourage you, if you come to the island of St. Croix, to pick up a Cruzan bracelet. You definitely want to have one. Any place in the world that I see that Cruzan bracelet, I know they’ve been to St. Croix. BV: Do you have a particularly busy season every year? NICHOLSON-DOTY: Traditionally, Christ- mas signals the beginning of the busy season and Easter generally ends the busy season. But one of the things that we’re finding is that more peo- ple are coming to the territory in the shoulder seasons. So outside of September and Octo- ber, which are traditionally months where we’re certainly praying we don’t get hurricanes, we’ve found that the busy season is stretching further and further out.