Press release - Summer on St. Barts, villas and hotels, June 2004

Summer on St. Barts, villas and hotels

HALF A BIKINI, A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE AND THOU BESIDE ME ON A ST BARTS BEACH… AND WHERE SHALL WE DINE NEXT?

Destination Specialist Wimco Showcases Villas, Hotels To Compliment Pate and Poisson On St. Barts, Gourmet Capital of the Caribbean

NEWPORT, R.I., June 2004 – Here’s good news for Francophiles and sybarites. Nestled in the Leeward Islands a tiny island of just 6,000 hospitable folk who proffer champagne instead of haute culture and cathedrals; whose raison d’etre is sun, sea and sand; and who scan the sky for signals that it’s time again to dine.

The French West Indies’ St. Barts, more attuned stylistically to the South of France than the Caribbean, displays the bikinis (or half thereof) of St. Tropez, the tans of Ibiza, and the cafes and bistros of posh European resorts.

This summer St. Barts offers Mediterranean villa-style holidays surrounded by cactus-and-boulder-strewn cliffs atop the sea with as much space and privacy as the wallet affords.

Wimco, the Newport, RI, and London-based luxury vacation villa and hotel reservations company offers accommodations ranging from such world-class hotels as the Relais & Chateau Le Toiny to designer private estates such as Villa Sundeck, one of 200 villas in Wimco partner Sibarth Real Estate’s portfolio of private vacation rentals.

Both hotel and villa rates are reduced during an extended summer season lasting from now to mid December. Rates range, for example, from 490 Euros per night in low season at Guanahani for a room that would cost 740 Euros in the height of holiday season. For those who choose villa life, a summer season rate of $4400 at Villa AKA in St. Jean would cost $6600 per week in the winter, and $8800 in the Christmas holidays.

St. Barts is internationally noted for its sophisticated lifestyle appealing to fashion and entertainment industry leaders, exquisite accommodations and excellent restaurants, earning it the label of “Gourmet capital of the Caribbean.” This island’s sexy story is available in the Wimco-published Vendome Guide to St. Barthelemy, a glossy, 130-page magazine that is a virtual “how to” for getting the most out of visiting the island. To obtain a copy and to make reservations contact Wimco toll free 1/800/932-3222; email info@wimco.com; or log on to the award-winning website www.wimco.com. From London please call toll free 0800 838 318; email info@wimco.co.uk; or log on to the website www.wimco.co.uk.

Since 1983 Wimco has marketed and managed reservations for an expanding collection of select Caribbean and European villas and hotels. Its roots began in the Caribbean as the exclusive representative of Sibarth Real Estate Company that has rented private villas on St. Barts since 1976. Today Wimco represents 750 villas on 12 Caribbean islands including St. Martin, Mustique, Nevis, Anguilla, Barbados, the Virgin Islands, Grand Cayman and others.

With Sibarth, Wimco has developed a model of marketing and booking villas with a client-centered, customized-service focus. Today it delivers choicest accommodations in some of the world’s most desired destinations thanks to a dedicated team of travel specialists who have visited every destination, villa and hotel in the Wimco portfolio.

Wimco has over 1,200 luxury villas, distinctive hotels and resorts internationally in such select areas as Italy’s Umbria and Tuscany regions, France’s Provence and St. Tropez, and, most recently Mykonos in the Greek Islands.

In June 2003 Wimco opened a London office, known as Wimco International, to serve the European market.

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