Is the thought of your 2008 getaway the only thing getting you through the cold winter nights? Are you wondering where to go to get that truly tropical experience? Well carnivals and festivals are high on the St. Lucia social calendar, offering you everything you need for the ultimate 2008 holiday.

St. Lucia is now widely recognised as a high-end destination, it doesn’t just cater for the luxury market though, there is accommodation to suit every visitor. From family friendly all-inclusive hotels, intimate inns and B&B’s to boutique hotels such as Jade Mountain at Anse Chastanet - an exclusive resort renowned for its incredible views - you really will be spoilt for choice.

From the St. Lucia Jazz Festival and the annual Carnival, to new events such as the Food and Rum Festival and Showtime in Paradise, you will find thrilling things to do all year around. For those with a sense of adventure there is also diving, snorkelling, sailing, kite surfing, wind surfing, hiking, and trail riding - so what are you waiting for?

So stop daydreaming about next years’ trip of a lifetime and make it a reality! With a warm climate in every season, St. Lucia is the ideal all-year round destination appealing to every generation! Join in our webchat to find out everything you need to know to have the perfect holiday.

Senator the Honourable Allen Chastanet for St Lucia tourism joins us online on Monday 12th November at 10 o’clock to discuss St Lucia

For more information visit www.stlucia.org

H: Katy Pullinger, host
A: Allen Chastanet, Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation

H: Hello and welcome to Holiday '07, I'm Katy Pullinger and today I've got the delight of talking about St Lucia which is a beautiful, beautiful place to visit and we're going to be discussing all the wonderful things you can do there, and I'm joined today by the minister of tourism and civil aviation, Allen Chastanet, Allen welcome to the show, thank you for joining us today

A: Thanks for having me Katy

H: It's quite alright, my pleasure, it's a great subject to be able to talk about. Where do we start, there's so many things to talk about. If you were, you know, thinking about going on holiday, why would St Lucia be the place to go to?

A: Well it's one of those, it's the traditional, tropical-looking island, very mountainous. It has the world famous Pitons, which are these twin peaks that come out of the ocean right next to where the volcano is. Very lush. Has been really a great romantic destination with some really phenomenal boutique hotels, and Chastonay, Jade Mountain, Ladera – Ladera was actually made the number one hotel in the world last year by both Conde Naste traveller and Travel Leisure

H: Wow

A: So really very interesting – 7 times it was English, 7 times it was French, so all the different locations are named after French places, so you have Soufriere and Chastonay, Vieux Fort, Canaries – so it really is a really incredible destination

H: Now for those, the people who are watching, where exactly is St Lucia? Because we know it's obviously an island, but whereabouts -

A: It's in Eastern Caribbean, specifically the Winward islands, which is right next to Barbados, or just north of Barbados and south of Antigua, or if you want some wider geography it's north of Venezuela

H: Yes

A: And south of Puerto Rico

H: Very specific, perfect. So you get a good idea of the kind of cultural influences as well that you're going to find in St Lucia

A: Well it's interesting as I said the French and the British which are obvious and then African, the Carib tribe was also very strong there so you've got a great mix, and as you drive around the island you see all the different influences

H: Now if you were going to go, what would draw you there, I mean is there something for everyone in St Lucia?

A: Well there is, I mean really a lot of weddings and a lot of honeymooners, but we've also got some great family resorts – Coconut Bay in the south end of the island we've got Almond properties, up in the north of the island Windjammer Landing which is a villa resort

H: Yes

A: And then we've got some really hot spa properties, you've got Le Sport which has its own 30 room centre, and then you've got Cotton Bay which has opened up, and most of the hotels have now really great spas with them, but there are obviously some that are better than the others

H: So you can go for you know obvious rest and relaxation, but if you were somebody that likes a bit more of an adventurous holiday, a bit more of an active holiday, what can you get up to

A: Well a lot of fun, St Lucia's attractions are growing. We've got a drive-in volcano which is pretty simple down to ziplines through to rainforests, canopy tours through the rainforest. Actually the zipline is 10 little zips that you go on for about 45 minutes, so it's really, really fun. ATV tours, fantastic windsurfing, kite surfing and also snorkelling and scuba diving, so -

H: Brilliant

A: It really is a great adventure destination

H: Sounds great, now you mentioned before it's a romantic place – can you get married there, is it a great honeymoon destination?

A: Well great honeymoon destination and very easy to get married there, and again depending on which hotel you go to, some hotels have a restriction that they only do one marriage per day

H: Oh really?

A: Yes

H: Which is nice, because it means it's special to you for that day and you know you haven't got a train of people coming through that day

A: Correct and you know you have some of your larger hotels in which they have a lot of different locations that you can choose from

H: Yes

A: And I'm not saying it's more of a production but it's much easier

H: Yes

A: And much more fluid, you have where you can stay in an all-inclusive hotel as a couple and you can stay, your family can stay nearby in a village

H: So you get your privacy

A: So it's a bit more affordable – you get your privacy and also it's financially more affordable. And the other thing that's really interesting about St Lucia is you can stay at one end of the island and get married and then go to the south end of the island and spend your honeymoon, so the famous ones are Ladera which we affectionately call the Loo with the view because it has no front wall and -

H: Wow how does that work, is it clear?

A: What it is is it's completely open in the front wall and it's right between the two pitons, and the pitons are actually located in a world heritage site and then there's now the Jade Mountain that's opened up, that has done the same thing but more in a modern version of that, I mean really incredible. You have Stonefield which is a really a family-owned hotel right there in Soufrieres, there's Ti Kaye which is 33 little huts with its own private beach

H: Oh lovely

A: And very, very affordable, very young and very trendy.

H: Yes

A: Then you have East Wind's Inn up north, which is a really cool boutique property, but the great thing is all the new boutique properties that are opening up in St Lucia, Discovery at Marigot Bay which is where Dr Doolittle was filmed

H: Oh brilliant

A: It's got its own marina. And then there's the Landings which is going to be a Rock Resort property with its own marina as well which is opening up this December

H: There's so much going on. Now you mentioned affordable just a moment ago, because I think a lot of people think you know the Caribbean, it's going to cost an absolute fortune, but it – you know it suits every budget yes?

A: Absolutely I mean you can stay at Ti Kaye in the summer time for $150 a night

H: Excellent

A: You can go down to Rodney Bay village and there are really cool 3 and 4 star budget hotels that are on the boutique style from $120 a night to as much as $200 a night

H: And what's the weather like all year, is there peak times?

A: It's very boring, it stays about 82 all year round

H: Fabulous

A: It gets a little humid in the summer time, but certainly nothing that's unbearable

H: Sounds good, sounds good. Back to what you can actually get up to, you know the windsurfing, the golf – what about families with kids, you know how can parents relax and have their kids have a good time as well?

A: Well take like for instance Coconut Bay has a huge slide park that's there

H: Excellent. I think I still want to go to that

A: Both Almonds and Windjammer Landing have their own kids centres where you can actually get nannies for your kids, so it can be as private as having nannies for your family or they can be part of the kids' centre, in the Rodney Bay villages as an example there's a Montessori school, and the Montessori actually accepts kids on a day basis,

H: Excellent

A: So you pay I think it's something like $30 and your kid can go for the entire day to a Montessori school which is really nice because they're international, there are kids there, the local kids there

H: They can make friends as well

A: And they make friends and what happens it becomes a really easy transition for the foreign families to meet some local families and that's when the destination gets exciting

H: And you get to really sort of immerse yourself in local culture as well

A: Correct

H: Now we've been banging on about it, sounds fabulous, let's have a look at exactly what we're talking about

Video footage

H: Gorgeous, absolutely stunning, as you can see you know you get massages, relaxation and the water sports, I want to go on one of those jet skis now, quite frankly – I'm already booking my ticket! So tell us a little bit more about what else is happening there, you've been talking about sort of development, there seems to be a lot going on in St Lucia right now

A: Really there's a huge growth that's taking place in St Lucia, we've got Raffles that are now building a Raffles Hotel for a Jack Nicolas golf course, 18 channel temperature golf course

H: Excellent

A: We have Westin, that's opening up with a Greg Norman golf course, we have Ritz Carlton opening up with an Arnold Palmer and a Christy O' Conner course and we've got another development that's taking place with Faldo and another one that's taking place with Ernie Els, so golf is and real estate investments are really now starting to grow in St Lucia, so it's the resort where you can buy a house and you can put into a rented pool, you don't have to put in to rent a pool and you get private access to your golf courses

H: You're going to be spoilt for the choice of you know whose your favourite golfer, which one do you go to? It's amazing

A: It really, really – I mean it's just amazing, and what's happening is you see St Lucia is both on the Caribbean sea and the Atlantic, and all these golf courses are taking place on the Atlantic side so you have a lot of courses where you're hitting over the ocean. For instance with the Greg Norman golf course, his signature hole is called the Tiger's Tooth

H: Yes

A: And it's a par 4 that goes straight out into the Atlantic ocean, at about 400 feet altitude

H: Wow

A: So it really is incredibly dramatic, and that's the thing about St Lucia, it's very mountainous and while all this construction's taking place, you don't really feel it because there's a lot of Coves, there's no really long stretches where you see masses of tourism, so it's really spread out throughout the island

H: It sounds brilliant, and like you say even if you're not into golf it sounds dramatic and beautiful enough to want to go and visit it anyway

A: Yes

H: You know and if you don't want to do golf, what else can you do? Scuba diving sounds good, because I scuba dive so I'd like to try it out

A: Well scuba diving is great and as I said the windsurfing

H: Yes

A: Is also excellent and we have two locations in St Lucia that are really fantastic for windsurfing. And you know the other big one that we keep forgetting about is the events in St Lucia

H: Oh yes – food and rum

A: Yes. We've got a jazz festival which is now on its 17th year, it really is amazing and you know the whose who of jazz has been there, you know Winton Marsalis, Anita Baker, the list goes on and on

H: And it looks like a huge event as well, I mean it's not just a little local jazz festival is it, it's a huge thing

A: We get about 6000 people

H: Wow

A: And you know compared to the north sea and Montreux that's much smaller but it's the same line-up so it's really very intimate, and it's on this island called Pigeon Island, so you sit there and it's just surrounded by both the Caribbean sea and the Atlantic ocean, so it's very, very dramatic when you go to it

H: And even when you don't like, you know if jazz isn't your main thing, it just looks like such a great atmosphere that you're going to love that as well. But if you're not really that into music, what else, you know that I mentioned before the Food and Rum festival, that sounds like a winner!

A: We just had the Food and Rum festival, so we bring chefs from around the world, we had Art Smith who is Oprah Winfrey's personal chef

H: Oh wow

A: We had Conrad who is Bill Cosby's personal chef, we had mixologists from around the world that were coming down. We had 20 boutique rums from around the Caribbean that were participating. We had this guy called Dwayne Dove and he is – does chocolate. Some of the finest chocolates come out of the Caribbean, particularly down from Trinidad, Grenada, St Lucia region, and there's a company here calls Hotel Chocolat that sells chocolates

H: Oh ok

A: And they've now bought a plantation in St Lucia, putting in a factory and in the process of building a boutique hotel with it. I hear something about a chocolate spa

H: A hotel all the way around chocolate?

A: All the way around chocolate?

H: It's like Willy Wonka! Brilliant

A: Sinful

H: Excellent. Gosh they really are ticking all the boxes for everyone. So you've got the family aspect, the water sports, the – having a rainforest as well as the beaches, that sounds amazing

A: Yes and you know as you get south, closer to the volcano, the beaches become black sand beaches and actually the water is just crystal clear and the diving is absolutely amazing

H: Tell us about the volcano actually, because some people might go oh gosh is there any chance of it erupting?

A: Yes it's called a passive volcano

H: Yes

A: But you can actually drive right into the crater, but what we're in the process of doing is we're now working with a major company to develop a massive spa facility off it, because it actually was built as Louis – Louis 16th had built this baths off of the volcano, so it's actually the sulphur water that comes through, so we're actually looking at it from a medicinal purpose and obviously from a relaxation purpose as well

H: Yes

A: And that's in the town of Soufrieres which is you know – I don't even know how to begin to describe Soufrieres, it's so beautiful and a lot of the day trippers go there. And the other thing is we are very close to a lot of other destinations which you can do day excursions to, so for instance Dominica which is what they say is – if Christopher Columbus came back, the only place he'd remember would be Dominica. Then you can go to the Grenadines which is obviously where Mustique is, Bowie, Mick Jagger, David Bowie all have their places there

H: Yes

A: And there's a place called Palm Island and also the Tobago Cays which is gorgeous, so you can actually fly over there, it takes about 20 minutes to fly over, and you get on a catamaran and you go sailing through these islands

H: Stunning

A: And then you can also go down, go over to Martinique, so there's an hour trip, an hour trip by a ferry over to Martinique and a totally different world. So really St Lucia offers you a variety of things to do, and with all these new villas coming in – like for instance I took my family on my first villa vacation, and it's so tough to go back to a traditional hotel after that

H: Yes

A: You know the idea of leaving the kids up there where they can eat their own meals

H: Yes

A: And we can go out and have our own meal and the nanny is there, and then the kids had their own plunge pool and things, so it really became a great family vacation. So St Lucia really offers a lot and it's really growing, and probably the most interesting thing for me are what we call the fishing villages, or we call village tourism. So we've got Gros Islet and we've got Anse La Raye which have Friday night parties. We're now putting small hotels into those villages and we're helping them fix up their waterfront, so we have small restaurants and small shops. So again if you live in one of the villas and you go driving around it would take you about 5 hours to drive around the entire island.

H: Wow

A: You can stop off and explore in each one of these villages, and each one has their own story.

H: And when you're exploring, what kind of wildlife might you be coming across?

A: Other than the ones that walk on two legs and we do have snakes – we have the green parrot which is the famous green parrot from St Lucia

H: Excellent

A: But really most of the stuff is we have a lot of great wildlife, birdlife, we have the Marine Island sanctuary where there's two iguanas that are unique to down there, so if you're into that aspect of it there really is a lot for you to do

H: Really is something for everyone. Now let's get onto a subject that's very important to me, what's the food like?

A: Actually very very mixed

H: Yes?

A: We've got a lot of international cuisine, but the cuisine that we have is Creole

H: Ok

A: Obviously the French influence is very strong

H: Yes

A: So very spicy, and very saucy and then everybody now does their different versions of it, so the more French it is the more heavier the sauces are

H: Ok

A: And the more English it is, more of a broth it becomes

H: Ok

A: But you have great chicken, great fish, so it's really really nice

H: But if you've got fussy kids, you know is there plenty for them as well?

A: There is

H: Because there's nothing worse than your kids going I don't like anything!

A: We have at all the restaurants but you also have your fast food Subways, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, they're all there

H: Oh they get everywhere don't they?

A: They're all everywhere. So really if they become very very fussy you always have that as a back-up, but I have to tell you I think that the kids, most of the kids I see there love the streetside vendors with the chicken, and the fish. Really is amazing

H: Oh fabulous. Fabulous. And so rum is obviously a big deal there as well?

A: It's huge in fact we have a rum up here called Element 8, which is produced in St Lucia which is really going into all the nightclubs and they have done a phenomenal job and won a tremendous amount of awards. We have chairman's reserve, we have Admiral Rodney, we have Bounty, and then we have all the other Caribbean rums that are there as well, so we also have our own beer called Piton and we have a Heineken brewery on the destination so we also have fresh Heineken beer

H: Oh wow

A: Done in St Lucia so - a great, great variety of things to do and it's getting better and better all the time. The big one really we've missed out is yachting

H: Oh yes

A: We have 4 major marinas in St Lucia, and we have one that's doubling in size right now, and we have the ark race every year which starts in Gran Canaria every November, we have about 250 boats that jointly cross the Atlantic together and end in St Lucia in early December

H: That's a sight to see, them all coming in

A: It is amazing, and you know for a lot of families that want to come to the Caribbean for sailing, it's a great way for them to safely traverse the Atlantic. But sailing is really fantastic and if you get the boat in St Lucia you can either stay around the St Lucia waters and there's lots to do, or sail from St Lucia down to St Vincent through the Grenadines and down to Grenada, so it's some of the most exciting yachting that's taking place in the world today

H: Now I'm already booking my ticket, but you know how am I actually going to get there to St Lucia?

A: Well it's getting easier and easier. We've got 4 flights a week out of Gatwick, three of them on Virgin and one of them – actually twice a week on British Airways, and also Exel. And we've also got a weekly flight out of Manchester with Virgin as well

H: Great

A: So really really is very easy

H: So again very easy for everyone within the UK, it's quite easy to fly if you're in Scotland to Manchester

A: Or from Ireland

H: Everywhere

A: It's really fantastic

H: Now once you're there, what are we going to be spending? Because that's what I want to know, what am I going to be shopping?

A: Hopefully lots of money! And we've actually made it very, very easy because St Lucia's actually fixed to the US dollar,

H: Oh brilliant

A: So for right now, the pound actually goes a very, very long way in St Lucia. There's ATM machines all over the place so you don't have to worry about getting ripped off in your currency exchange because it's done on an official basis

H: Right

A: We accept all major credit cards at all the restaurants and all the hotels, so it's actually very easy. And you can either convert into US dollars because US dollars is easily usable there or you can convert it into our local currency which is called the Eastern Caribbean Dollar

H: Which is always – it's kind of nice sometimes to have the local money, it makes you feel you know a little bit – well closer to the country doesn't it?

A: It is and you know it's very very easy to use and as I say it's a very safe place to walk around, that's one of the things that we're the happiest about in St Lucia. Just easy, easy to get around

H: I think we could probably talk about St Lucia for hours and hours, but I think the next thing is we all need to get online and start looking for flights! I know that's what I'm going to be doing. Well Allen thank you so much for joining us today, a fabulous topic and it sounds like an absolutely stunning place to go, and it really does seem to cover something for everyone – you've got the water sports, the food, the rainforest, the volcano, the golf, I mean we could go – like I say we could go on for hours, but we can't so I'm afraid that's the end of the show today but thank you very much for joining us with Holiday '07, I'm Katy Pullinger and we shall see you next time on the Holiday Show

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