St. Maarten Heineken Regatta presents MAPSXM, the Virtual St. Maarten!

The web portal www.mapsxm.com was developed on island to help attract residents, tourists and anyone else who seeks information about the regatta parties and the island.

www.mapsxm.com was developed to become the island premier information website and is based on a satellite map: It is one of the first full screen maps on the internet! Not only does it feature businesses with a so-called ‘map marker’ but visitors and locals alike get an overview of listed businesses and can zoom-in until they see the exact building and street where a business is located. Shortcuts to areas of high business intensity are provided.

www.mapsxm.com feeds off information provided by www.mapsxm.net, the new free business directory for the island. The .com website classifies businesses, points of public interest and St. Maarten Heineken Regatta sponsors with markers in different colors. Sponsors and paid and public markers open directly on the map and display core information.

A great added bonus for www.mapsxm.com is the integration into the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta website, as the web portal replaces the formerly printed Regatta Island Map: A step which underlines the Regatta’s pledge to support the environment. Another clear advantage over its printed predecessor is that it reaches a global audience 24/7!

The website will be used as the official 2009 St.Maarten Heineken Regatta events schedule online: all party & concert locations, dates and specifics and changes will be officially shown on www.mapsxm.com.

From launch date December 1, 2008 until February 24, 2009 ‘Mapsxm’ had almost 70 000 page views. Visitors average of nine pages per visit and stay seven minutes on the site. Due to the integration into www.heinekenregatta.com, ‘Mapsxm’ will further benefit of the success of the Regatta website which alone in March and April gets over 200 000 page views from all over the world.

‘Mapsxm’ is a joint venture between the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta, the SMYC (St. Maarten Yacht Club) and Litemoon, long term regatta website sponsor. Both web portals were launched on December 1, 2008 and will benefit from the global marketing and promotion campaign of the regatta.