Guadeloupe Tourism
High season in the West Indies lasts 5 months, from december to april.
Guadeloupe has a lodging capacity of over 9,000 rooms in 176 hotels, more than the half of them are in the 3 or 4 star class.
Other lodging facilities have been created, for instance the 373 gites.
The main settlement area of hotels is to be found on "continental" Guadeloupe where the highest density is on the "Riviera" from Gosier to Saint-François, and on the Northern Islands.
In 1996, about 614,000 guests could be counted, 365,000 in continental Guadeloupe and 249,000 in Saint-Martin despite of the dommages caused by the hurricane Luis in september 1995.
Clients on the continent were mainly French (80%), whilst in Saint Martin about 40% of the tourists came from Northern America - figuring only 2,6% of the total number of tourists in Guadeloupe.
The rest of the clients came from Martinique, French Guyana, Switzerland, Italy and Germany.
The fact, that Guadeloupe is port of call for many cruise ships braught an increase of Italian tourists, for instance.
TOURISM IN HOTELS IN 1996
