Expert short-term rental marketing to grow your bookings and nightly rate in Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten, Caribbean.
Sixteen services, one team. Everything below is built in-house and scoped to your property and market. Most owners start with the 12-Step System.
Every engagement is quoted to your portfolio. These are the ready-made scopes owners pick most — our Fall Special (55% off list or more) is already applied to the website, King Broker, Hotels and à la carte scopes. A clear proposal within 48 hours.
The work is public. Selected engagements and what changed — and reviews from the owners and managers behind them.
* Market averages from AirDNA and STR market reports. A single home's numbers depend on its size, its location and how it is marketed.
Cavmir is an Airbnb marketing agency. We build the brand, the direct-booking website and the marketing for short-term rentals in Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten.
Saint Martin is the smallest inhabited landmass in the world split between two sovereign nations — the French collectivity of Saint-Martin to the north and the Dutch constituent country of Sint Maarten to the south. French-side Terres Basses anchors the island's ultra-luxury villa peninsula; Grand Case functions as the culinary capital of the Caribbean with more serious restaurants per capita than any comparable Caribbean town; Orient Bay holds the French-side beach-and-chic corridor. On the Dutch side, Simpson Bay Lagoon holds one of the eastern Caribbean's largest megayacht marinas, and Maho Beach's runway-end jet-blast spectacle is one of the most viral beaches in the world. Post-Hurricane Irma (2017) inventory is structurally higher-quality than what came before.
SXM's STR market is best understood as two separate markets inside one 37-square-mile island. French-side Terres Basses and Grand Case command premium rates driven by European consumer-framework expectations and culinary adjacency; Dutch-side Simpson Bay, Cupecoy, and Maho compete on airport-and-yacht logistics and aggressive condo-tier pricing. The dual-jurisdiction structure means compliance runs in parallel: French collectivité registration on the north side, Dutch Ministry of Tourism licensing on the south. The sailing and yacht-charter channel is materially larger here than on most Caribbean islands.
Cavmir's side-specific positioning is how SXM marketing actually works. We build French-side brands around the Grand Case culinary identity and Terres Basses exclusivity; Dutch-side brands around airport convenience, Simpson Bay marina adjacency, and the Maho runway spectacle. Our cinematic photography captures the Anguilla-view cross-strait composition from the French peninsula and the megayacht density at Simpson Bay. Direct-booking infrastructure coordinates with local concierge operators on the side the property actually sits on, rather than flattening the two sides into one blurred Caribbean destination.
Saint Martin is the smallest inhabited landmass in the world shared by two sovereign nations — the French collectivity of Saint-Martin to the north and the Dutch constituent country of Sint Maarten to the south. The 1648 Treaty of Concordia partitioned the island between France and the Netherlands, and the border has remained largely uncontested for nearly four centuries. The French side operates under French law, uses the euro, and is technically part of the European Union; the Dutch side uses the Caribbean guilder (which replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder on 1 April 2025) and the US dollar and runs on Dutch-Caribbean administrative frameworks. The island has been a duty-free tourism economy since the 1950s, with Princess Juliana International Airport on the Dutch side providing one of the best-connected airports in the eastern Caribbean.
Hurricane Irma struck the island in September 2017 as a catastrophic Category 5 storm, causing widespread devastation and triggering a multi-year rebuild that is only now approaching completion in some corridors. The rebuild materially upgraded the island's infrastructure and inventory quality — much of the standing STR inventory today is post-Irma construction built to higher hurricane specifications than the stock it replaced. The STR market concentrates on the French side in Terres Basses (the luxury villa peninsula), Grand Case (the culinary capital of the Caribbean), and Orient Bay; on the Dutch side in Simpson Bay, Cupecoy, and Maho. Treating the two sides as one market misses the legal, tax, and cultural differences that materially affect operator strategy.
Terres Basses luxury villas clear USD $1,000–$5,000/night in peak season, with waterfront full-staff compounds reaching $8,000+ during Christmas and February windows. Grand Case boutique villas and guesthouses run $300–$900/night with strong F&B-adjacent occupancy. Orient Bay beach villas run $400–$1,200/night. Dutch-side Simpson Bay and Cupecoy condos run $250–$700/night with meaningful volume. The French-side premium is real — Terres Basses commands rates the Dutch side's competing inventory cannot match, driven by guest perception of exclusivity, French cuisine adjacency, and EU-framework property quality.
High seasonality. Peak: December 15 through April 15, with Christmas/New Year, February break, and Easter as super-peak. Shoulder: May, June, November. Low: August through October (hurricane season), though July and early August capture French-metropolitan and European family demand given the French-side calendar. The Heineken Regatta in early March and SXM Festival (electronic music) anchor mid-peak weekend spikes.
The French side (Saint-Martin) operates under French collectivité law. STR operators must register their furnished tourist accommodation with the Collectivité de Saint-Martin, obtain a SIRET business number, and declare the TGCA, the Collectivité's turnover tax, which replaced the taxe de séjour for lodging in 2020. French tax rules apply to rental income earned by residents; non-resident owners face specific French-source-income obligations. The collectivité has implemented various Airbnb-style registration caps in some zones, patterned loosely on the French-metropolitan model. The Dutch side (Sint Maarten) regulates through the Ministry of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport and Telecommunications; operators register, obtain a business license from the Department of Economic Affairs, and collect accommodation tax (currently around 5%) and turnover tax where applicable.
Foreign ownership is unrestricted on both sides. The French side uses Napoleonic-code conveyancing through a notaire, with notary fees and registration taxes adding roughly 7–10% to acquisition cost. The Dutch side uses Dutch-Caribbean conveyancing patterns with lower transaction friction. The choice of side materially affects tax treatment, conveyancing complexity, and day-to-day operating framework; this is not a detail to resolve after acquisition. Engage counsel on the relevant side before signing anything.
The SXM strategic insight: choose a side and own it. Marketing that blurs the French and Dutch sides into one Caribbean destination dilutes the specific narrative each side actually sells. French-side villas should lead with Grand Case culinary culture, Terres Basses exclusivity, and the European-framework guest experience; Dutch-side properties should lead with airport convenience, Maho Beach's runway-photography spectacle, Simpson Bay's superyacht marina, and the nightlife density that French-side guests cross the border to enjoy.
Second — the culinary positioning is the French side's defensible moat. Grand Case alone has more high-end restaurants per capita than any other small Caribbean town, and properties within walking distance should build entire content programs around that — restaurant previews, chef profiles, reservation-service concierge layers. Third — the post-Irma rebuild means current inventory quality is structurally higher than the prior generation; marketing should explicitly reference hurricane-resilience construction and backup-systems redundancy. Fourth — the sailing and yacht-charter channel is materially larger here than on most Caribbean islands, and villa inventory adjacent to Simpson Bay Lagoon and the French-side marinas should build yacht-guest relationships as a repeat-booking demand layer.
SXM challenges: Atlantic hurricane exposure is real and Irma's memory still shapes insurance pricing and some guest perception; the dual-jurisdiction structure means operating across sides requires parallel compliance rather than a single framework; French-side tax treatment of rental income can be heavier than some buyers anticipate; Dutch-side pricing competition is aggressive in the condo segment; cruise-ship overflow can affect the quality of the Philipsburg and Marigot day-trip experience; and the Princess Juliana Airport traffic pattern, while unique-selling for Maho, creates real noise exposure for properties in the flight path.
SXM insurance costs reflect real Atlantic hurricane exposure — Irma 2017 set post-event market pricing that hasn't fully relaxed. Named-storm, wind, and flood coverage are standard. Budget USD $8,000–$30,000 annually for luxury villas; Terres Basses waterfront at the upper end. Regional carriers (NAGICO, Guardian General, Sagicor) and French-side carriers for French-side properties dominate. Documented hurricane-resilience construction materially improves renewal pricing.
French-side rental income is subject to French tax treatment. Non-resident owners typically face a flat 20% income tax on French-source rental income plus social charges; careful structuring through French or EU entities can optimize. Property transfer tax and notary fees at acquisition are substantial. Dutch-side rental income faces Dutch-Caribbean tax treatment — generally more favorable for non-residents, with accommodation tax and turnover tax as guest-collected pass-throughs. US owners remain subject to US tax on both sides. Choose side counsel before structuring.
French-side mortgages are accessible through French metropolitan banks (BRED, BNP Paribas) and French-Caribbean regional carriers. Dutch-side mortgages run through Windward Islands Bank, RBC, and regional Dutch-Caribbean banks. Foreign-buyer LTVs typically 60–65% on both sides with standard documentation. Rates track euro or USD benchmarks depending on side. Cash purchase is common at the Terres Basses luxury tier.
Most visitors from North America and Europe land at Princess Juliana International Airport on the Dutch side, so its arrival count is the best guide to whom your site should address. Sint Maarten's Department of Statistics, which now reports air passenger arrivals instead of stay-over visitors, counted 855,994 of them in 2025. The United States supplied 53.9% and North America as a whole 63.3%. The European Union came second at 25.8%, split almost evenly between France at 10.3% and the Netherlands at 10.0%, with the Caribbean at 5.1% and Central and South America at 3.0%. Those shares set your languages, your currencies and the order of your menu. A direct-booking website for a home on this island also has to say at once which side it's on, because the tax, the currency, the privacy law and even the country in the address change between Marigot and Philipsburg.
With the United States at more than half of arrivals, write the main site in American English, then publish complete French and Dutch versions as their own pages linked with hreflang tags, so a search typed in Lyon or Utrecht finds a page in that language instead of a translate button. French pages matter most for a French-side home, and they should use the names French guests type: Baie Orientale for Orient Bay, Baie Longue for Long Bay, Baie Nettlé for Nettle Bay. The English pages need the reverse, since Terres Basses is also known as the Lowlands. The Netherlands sent almost as many arrivals as France, which makes Dutch pages worth adding for a home around Simpson Bay, Cupecoy or Philipsburg. Quote in US$ on the English pages and offer euros on the French and Dutch ones, because both of those markets budget in euros. If your house guide lists taxi fares or market prices in guilders, update it: the Caribbean guilder (XCG) replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder on 1 April 2025 at US$1 = 1.79 XCG, and NAf cash was accepted only until 30 June 2025, so a page still quoting NAf looks abandoned. In every language, the top of each page carries the same facts: the side and the bay, the drive from the airport, air conditioning room by room, and what keeps the power and water running after a storm.
The French side sits inside the European Union: Saint-Martin is one of the EU's nine outermost regions, where Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU allows a tailored application of EU law. Regulation (EU) 2024/1028 has therefore applied since 20 May 2026, requiring platforms to display a host's registration number and refuse listings without a valid one wherever a registration procedure exists, so ask the Collectivité's tourism department whether the meublé declaration you file there now carries a number, and if it does, print it in your site's footer and on every listing. The Collectivité sets its own taxes and replaced the taxe de séjour with its turnover tax, the TGCA, in 2020, when collection passed from customs to the DGFiP, and a rule reported in January 2022 lets platforms declare and pay the TGCA on the seasonal rentals they handle. On a booking made through your own site no platform does that, so state on every quote whether the tax is included. On the Dutch side, revenue that has borne room tax is exempt from the 5% turnover tax (TOT), TOT returns are monthly and due by the 15th of the following month, and tax guides describe a planned reform that would fold room tax into the TOT. In March 2021 the finance minister told MPs he wanted Airbnb to collect a 5% tax from renters, and a Daily Herald editorial in January 2022 said that deal hadn't happened, so ask Sint Maarten's Tax Administration whether any platform remits for your listing before you count on it. On privacy, the GDPR applies on the French side, enforced by France's CNIL, while Sint Maarten's National Ordinance Personal Data Protection of 2010 hands supervision to a committee under its article 42 and has no cookie clause. With a quarter of arrivals coming from the EU, build one consent banner to the GDPR standard for both sides, and confirm your own case with an accountant on the side where the house stands.
Guests choose St. Martin by bay, so give each area its own page. On the French side that means Grand Case and its restaurant row, Orient Bay, Terres Basses with Baie Rouge and Baie Longue, Marigot, and Cul-de-Sac for the boat to Pinel Island; on the Dutch side, Simpson Bay and the lagoon, Maho and Cupecoy, Philipsburg on Great Bay, and Dawn Beach near Oyster Pond, which the border runs through. Event pages for the Heineken Regatta, SXM Festival and St. Martin's Day come next, dated in the plan below, plus a getting-here page timed to the hours the big jets land at Princess Juliana. The photos that close a booking here are specific: the terrace view and which bay it faces, the path down to the sand, the generator and storm shutters, the parking space, and for a house near Maho or Simpson Bay, a clear note on aircraft noise. If your terrace looks over the runway approach, film it; the planespotters will book for it and everyone else will know what to expect.
GEO (generative engine optimization) is the work of making your rental the one an AI assistant can name, with a link to your own site, when a traveller asks where to stay on St. Martin. The American majority already plans this way. In a Censuswide survey for Qlik of 2,001 U.S. adults planning summer travel, fielded June 5-9, 2026, 58% said they use AI platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude to plan, against 55% who rely on traditional travel websites. A quarter (25%) named inaccurate or outdated information as a frustration, and 17% would book on an AI recommendation alone. On an island with two sets of rules, two currencies and two names for many of its bays, an assistant that can't find current, consistent facts about your house will describe someone else's.
Most questions about this island start with the split. A first-timer asks whether the French or the Dutch side suits a family with small children, or which side has the calmer beaches. A couple asks for a villa within walking distance of the Grand Case restaurants, or a base on Orient Bay with a boat day to Pinel Island. A sailor wants a bed near Simpson Bay for regatta week; a festival guest wants a house with easy reach of venues on both sides in March. Planners ask how long the drive takes from the airport to Terres Basses at landing time, whether they need euros on the French side, how to reach Anguilla for the day, and what stays open in September and October. French travellers type their questions in French, along the lines of “location avec piscine à la Baie Orientale, plage à pied”, and Dutch travellers ask for a vakantiehuis near Simpson Bay in Dutch. Give each recurring question a page in the language it's asked in, with your house as the example in the answer.
Write one block of facts and use it word for word on your site and every listing: the side and the bay, how many the house sleeps, bedrooms and bathrooms, minutes by car to Princess Juliana and to Marigot or Philipsburg, minutes on foot to a named beach, whether the house sits under the Maho approach, the backup power, the currency of the quote, the tax line and whether it's included, the cancellation rule, and any reference number the Collectivité gives you. Keep event dates on dated pages and change them the week organisers announce new ones, since outdated information is the complaint a quarter of that survey's respondents raised. Serve the pages as crawlable HTML with lodging schema that carries the full address and map coordinates, so a model can place the house on the correct side of the border. Then check the country field everywhere: Saint-Martin (MF) and Sint Maarten (SX) are separate countries in address lists, and a Dutch-side villa filed under Saint-Martin on one platform gives an assistant two addresses to choose between.
Answer engines lean on sources that already describe the island, and each side has its own. The Office de Tourisme de Saint-Martin covers the French side and the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau the Dutch side. Sint Maarten's Department of Statistics publishes the arrival figures the press repeats, and the Collectivité posts the official programme for St. Martin's Day. The Daily Herald, the English-language daily in Philipsburg, covers tax, tourism and events across the island, Soualiga Newsday adds more English coverage, and Faxinfo and Le Pélican report the French side in French. Event organisers publish dates and venues an assistant can cross-check: the Heineken Regatta says it draws well over 20,000 visitors a year, and SXM Festival lists programming on both sides. Digital PR means the right story in the right language: a French-side restoration for Faxinfo, a regatta-week story for The Daily Herald. Settle the house's name, side and address on Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and your own site before you pitch anyone, so every mention points to one place.
Content marketing for a St. Martin rental runs on three clocks: the North American winter, the island's March event fortnight and the French holiday calendar. In 2027 the regatta (4-7 March) and SXM Festival (17-21 March) fall less than two weeks apart, which turns March into one long booking window. Each guide below needs a dated fact, a named place and a detail from your own house before an answer engine will quote it, and each has to be indexed before its guests start asking. Here's the order from this autumn.
Publish a French-side-or-Dutch-side page first, because it's the first thing guests ask and every other guide can link to it: euros on one side and US dollars alongside the Caribbean guilder on the other, the TGCA against room tax and TOT, which beaches and restaurants sit where, and how a day out crosses the open border. Pair it with a getting-here page built around Princess Juliana and the drive to your bay at landing times, Grand Case-L'Espérance airport for island hops, and the ferries to Anguilla and St. Barts. A terms-and-taxes page in English and French comes third, setting out the deposit, the currency, the tax line and the cancellation rule. Area guides follow, one per bay from Grand Case and Orient Bay round to Simpson Bay, Cupecoy and Dawn Beach, each saying what's within walking distance and what kind of group the house suits.
Put the regatta page up this autumn: the 47th Heineken Regatta runs 4-7 March 2027, its office sits at Simpson Bay Bridge, and the page should state your minimum stay for that week and the drive to the bridge. The SXM Festival page goes up next. Its tenth edition runs 17-21 March 2027 across beaches, villas, clubs and hilltops on both sides, so say which areas are a short drive from the house and how guests get home late at night. A St. Martin's Day page in French and English covers 11 November, when the Collectivité and Sint Maarten mark the day together as the high season approaches.
The French summer holidays bring families to the French side, so write that guide in French first, priced in euros: calm beaches for small children, which Grand Case restaurants stay open, and how the house stays cool. A Dutch-language page earns its place for a Dutch-side home, since the Netherlands supplied 10.0% of 2025 arrivals. An English page for September and October should say what closes, how your terms handle a named storm and what the generator covers, which are the questions late planners ask in hurricane season. Short day-trip pages for Pinel Island from Cul-de-Sac and Anguilla by ferry from Marigot fill the gaps between the bigger guides.
SXM through 2027 and beyond: the post-Irma rebuild creates a structurally higher-quality inventory base than the pre-storm cohort, which supports premium positioning for new construction. French-side Terres Basses retains its luxury ceiling; Grand Case's culinary identity continues compounding. Dutch-side Cupecoy and Simpson Bay condo supply grows and competes on price. Atlantic hurricane climate risk will continue shaping insurance and operational cost. The dual-jurisdiction complexity keeps informal operators at a structural disadvantage to professional infrastructure. Cavmir's SXM thesis: the eastern Caribbean's most sophisticated dual-product market, where French-side culinary-exclusivity positioning and Dutch-side airport-and-yacht logistics each unlock distinct, durable guest segments.
Saint Martin is the only inhabited landmass in the world split between two sovereign nations, and after you've worked on both sides for a while you realize that's not a trivia fact — it's the defining operational reality. French-side Saint-Martin runs on French law, euros, and EU-framework consumer expectations. Dutch-side Sint Maarten runs on Netherlands-Antillean administrative logic, USD pricing, and the Princess Juliana airport traffic that lands the whole island's connectivity in one place. The border at Marigot-side crossings is casual and functional; the regulatory split is not. We love the island because it forces operators to choose a side and own it, and the marketing that works is the marketing that respects the choice.
What keeps us working here is the range inside 37 square miles. Terres Basses is one of the Caribbean's densest luxury-villa peninsulas and Grand Case is the culinary capital of the region — more serious restaurants per capita than any comparable small town in the Caribbean — both on the French side. Orient Bay is the French-side beach-and-chic-beachclub corridor. On the Dutch side, Simpson Bay Lagoon holds one of the largest megayacht marinas in the eastern Caribbean, Maho Beach's runway-approach jet spectacle is one of the most viral beaches in the world, and Cupecoy's condo towers compete hard on OTA pricing. Heineken Regatta in March brings the sailing crowd; SXM Festival brings an electronic-music crowd; Hurricane Irma in September 2017 brought a catastrophic rebuild that ultimately raised the island's inventory quality. Our job is helping operators pick the right story for their side and stop blurring the two.
How we actually use Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten when we're building a side-specific positioning deck, reshooting a villa library, or explaining why a dual-side marketing strategy is diluting both brands.
The culinary-village identity is the French side's defensible moat and the morning before service is when it photographs honestly — small fishing boats, quiet beach, shuttered bistros warming up. We route clients here early to explain why the generic beach shot isn't doing the brand work it should.
The Anguilla-visible view from the French-side peninsula is one of the better Caribbean compositions and the golden-hour light picks up both islands clearly. We build hero libraries around this single vantage for Terres Basses villa clients.
French-colonial color blocking, a proper morning market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the fort climb that explains the island's geography. We use this walk to reframe client conversations about positioning — French side is specifically, not generically, Caribbean.
Multiple independent restaurants in a walkable block with actual culinary reputation. We brief clients to eat through three over a two-night stay because the density is the story the marketing needs to tell.
The jet-blast spectacle is the Dutch side's most viral asset, and properties in the flight-path visibility should build content programs around it. The warning signs are a genuine hazard, not styling, and the honest marketing of the sound, the wind, and the approach is what converts.
Rates ease, the island catches its breath, and the restaurant scene is still fully staffed before the summer slowdown. This is when we schedule refresh shoots for both sides and line up content libraries for the fall campaign push.
A five-minute water-taxi ride to a car-free island with a handful of beach restaurants and some of the cleanest snorkeling off the main island. The contrast between the Terres Basses villa-density brief and the Pinel escape anchor makes it into almost every concierge package we help build.
Every inquiry we audit on this island surfaces some version of these three. Front-loading the answers in a pre-arrival sequence — especially the side-differences education — measurably shortens the inquiry-to-booking path and reduces first-day concierge friction.
Representative Cavmir engagements in Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten. Property identifiers redacted; figures composited from internal analytics and market benchmarks.
A collection of three ultra-luxury villas on the French-side peninsula were being sold through a generalist OTA presence that lumped them alongside Dutch-side condos an order of magnitude below in positioning. The Grand Case culinary adjacency and the Anguilla-view geography were invisible in the booking funnel.
We built a portfolio-level French-side brand that led with Terres Basses exclusivity, produced a library that captured the peninsula's sunset vantages and the walkable access to Grand Case and Baie Rouge, launched a direct-booking program with a concierge layer that pre-briefed restaurant reservations, and restructured paid media around French-side luxury intent rather than SXM-generic terms.
Direct-booking share moved to a meaningful minority of confirmed nights within the first peak season post-launch, ADR on direct bookings moved above the prior OTA baseline, and the repeat-guest cohort — culturally oriented, culinary-driven, longer stays — began forming within two peak seasons.
A 12-room boutique guesthouse inside Grand Case's restaurant corridor was competing with Cupecoy beachfront condos on price and losing the exact culturally motivated guest it should have been winning. The culinary adjacency was a footnote instead of a headline.
We repositioned the property as the culinary-village base camp, produced a library that integrated the restaurant row directly into the property's visual identity, launched a package program with participating Grand Case restaurants (reservation-first concierge, chef's-table access), and rebuilt paid search around culinary-travel intent rather than Caribbean-hotel keywords.
ADR improved materially against the pre-engagement baseline, length of stay extended, and the review mix shifted to emphasize the culinary experience as the reason for booking — which had always been the property's real advantage but had never been the marketing story.
A 40-unit condo rental program at Simpson Bay was competing on OTA pricing against commodity Cupecoy inventory and losing the specific demand layer it had geographic advantage on — the yacht-charter and boat-charter guests using Simpson Bay Lagoon as a base.
We rebuilt the brand around the marina-and-lagoon proximity, produced content tied to yacht-day and fishing-charter itineraries, launched partnerships with Simpson Bay charter operators, and restructured the booking flow with a yacht-adjacent-stay package structure that priced longer multi-day holds at premium.
The charter-adjacent booking share became a meaningful identifiable segment, ADR on charter-package bookings ran materially above the general inventory average, and the program established a differentiated positioning that let the owner stop competing directly with Cupecoy on price.
Yes. Cavmir works with short-term rental owners and boutique hotels in Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten — property branding, listing optimization, photography direction, direct-booking websites, SEO, and paid campaigns. Properties near Terres Basses, Grand Case and Orient Bay are exactly the kind of stays we market.
The market snapshot on this page shows average nightly rates around $525 with occupancy near 66% for Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten. Treat those as directional market averages, not guarantees — the spread between a well-marketed property and a poorly marketed one in the same market is wide.
Demand in Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten is distinctly seasonal — a strong peak stretch carries much of the year, which makes pricing discipline and early-calendar marketing matter more, not less. The properties that win are the ones already visible before the peak begins.
Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten sits in the middle of the regulatory spectrum — some registration or permit requirements typically apply. Rules change often in this industry, so confirm the current requirements with local authorities before you list. Cavmir handles the marketing side; we don't provide legal or permitting advice.
Give guests a way to book you without a platform in the middle: a fast direct-booking website, a complete Google Business Profile, and follow-up that brings past guests back. Cavmir builds that stack — see vacation rental SEO — so your repeat Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten guests stop paying platform fees to find you.
It depends on scope. Current plans and one-time project pricing are on the pricing page — most owners start with a listing overhaul or the 12-step system. A conversation about your property costs nothing: contact Cavmir.
Send us the listing and we'll tell you what we'd change. Not a pitch deck — a straight read on your photos, your title, your rates against the Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten comp set, and whether a direct-booking site would pay for itself.
You'll hear back from a person, usually inside one business day. If we don't think we can move your numbers, we'll say so. Cavmir is a short-term rental marketing agency — we position and market properties, we don't manage them.
Demand in St. Martin peaks around January, February and March and runs quietest around August through September. Here is how the year actually books — and what to do about each stretch of the calendar.
The northern winter carries the island, from mid-December through April, peaking around the Christmas and New Year holidays when both the French and Dutch sides fill up. Early March adds the Heineken Regatta, the largest sailing event in the Caribbean, which packs Simpson Bay and the marinas. Set holiday-week pricing and minimums early and hold them, and have the listing fully dialed before the season opens because winter is when this market is won.
January and February hold strong as premium shoulders, carrying couples and beach-week travelers escaping the cold. April tapers gently after the regatta but stays warm and bookable, and Carnival energy on both sides adds bookable dates in late winter. November wakes the calendar back up as the season returns. Keep pricing steady through these months and lean on the island's two-nation, two-beach appeal in your copy.
Late summer into early fall, roughly August through October, is the quiet stretch and the heart of hurricane season, when demand and some services thin out. Use it for maintenance, a photography refresh and a careful review of your winter rates. Any bookings here skew short-notice and price-sensitive, so build the year's plan around a strong, well-priced winter rather than chasing thin summer dates.
The holiday fortnight and New Year book the furthest ahead, and the winter beach layer fills through the autumn. Regatta and festival guests commit once dates are published, while short-break travelers move inside a couple of weeks. Set the holiday and event weeks early and firm, and keep shoulder pricing nimble for the short-fuse layer.
Winter runs on week-long beach stays with a strong long-stay layer of Europeans who post up for a month or more. The regatta and Carnival weeks add shorter, event-driven bookings. It's a calendar that rewards marketing to more than one guest type, since the French long-stay visitor and the American beach-week family want very different things.
A house or villa with a pool and a short walk to a good beach wins, ideally positioned so guests can reach both the French and Dutch sides without a long drive. Orient Bay and the Grand Case side pull the beach-and-dining couples, while Simpson Bay wins the marina and nightlife crowd. A view and real outdoor living space matter as much as interior size on this island.
Lead with your geography and the island's split personality, showing photography of both the beach and the easy reach of French dining and Dutch nightlife. Price the winter and event calendar deliberately, because the holidays and the Heineken Regatta behave nothing like ordinary weeks. Add a Google Business Profile for map searches and a direct-booking site so repeat winter guests and long-stay Europeans can rebook straight with you. That listing-copy, photography and direct-booking layer is what Cavmir builds for St. Martin hosts, and the island's mix of guest types rewards it.
The peak is the northern winter, roughly mid-December through April, topping out over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Early March adds the Heineken Regatta, and Carnival on both sides keeps late winter and spring busy. Late summer into fall is the quietest stretch and the core of hurricane season.
The holiday fortnight books the furthest out, and the winter beach layer fills through the autumn. Regatta and festival guests commit once dates are published, while short breaks move inside a couple of weeks. Lock the holiday and event weeks early, then stay responsive on shoulder dates.
The core feeders are the US East Coast, Canada and mainland France, with New York, Miami, Paris, Toronto and Boston leading. The island is its own gateway through the SXM airport, which carries direct service from all three regions, so fly-in guests arrive ready to explore both sides.
A private pool, a sea view and a short walk to a good beach lead the list, backed by air conditioning and fast wifi. A car or easy parking matters because guests want to move between the French and Dutch sides, and outdoor living space closes the deal in a market that runs on beach-and-dinner days.
Talk to Cavmir today. We'll show you exactly what your Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten property is leaving on the table — and how fast we can change that.
Book a Free Strategy Call
