St Lawrence Gap should be buzzing with dining, entertainment and shows and should not be at “death’s door”.
That entire corridor all the way up to the Plantation, including the watercourse behind The Gap, should be alive with restaurants, sports bars, nightclubs, casinos, shops and so on – the mini Las Vegas of the Eastern Caribbean.
The tranquil but abandoned Nature Sanctuary within the Graeme Hall Swamp offers opportunities for passive types of recreation and enjoyment that are compatible with that delicate ecosystem.
There can be peddle boats, canoeing, bird watching, an aviary or zoo, picnicking, guided educational tours, interpretation of the ecology, a restaurant and souvenir shop – all suitable activities.
If locals are struggling and do not have the capitalisation to make it happen, give generous concessions to foreign moguls with mega bucks to develop the plan. Of course, investors will be wary about putting their money in a depressed economy such as Barbados at the moment, especially if the project is Government-led.
The risks with Government are just too high. That’s the reason creating “confidence” is so important. We must have skilled negotiators to sell the idea, even in the worst of times.
The right mix
The spin-off benefits for such a project will be huge for the economy – jobs, businesses, economic growth, and so on. If Barbados wants to propel itself as the leader in tourism this side of the Caribbean, we must think big.
These are the kind of projects the product arm of the new tourism authority should be considering. Another would be to designate the entire East Coast as a national park and identify other locations for marine parks around the island.
Each of the above activities will cater to a different segment of the market with their own unique preferences and interests. It is then that we can make the claim of being on the way to getting the tourism marketing mix right. Naturally, there are other elements that must be put in place over time.
St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines are fast on our heels and taking our tourism market share. St Lucia and Grenada are up 6.6 per cent and 18.6 per cent as at August, respectively. Barbados’ growth is less than 0.2 per cent (Source: Caribbean Tourism Organisation).
Sadly our tourism minister and officials seem to believe that the only way out of our visitor arrival woes is to establish more “airlift” and nothing else. In other words, once the airplane seats are there, tourists will automatically drop right into them and head to Barbados.
Cancellations
We are already hearing the same refrain from the new BTMI chairman as we did from the previous BTA head over the past four years: “Forward hotel bookings look positive for the winter season”. When the monthly numbers are tabulated, we are either under the year before or recording less than 1.0 per cent growth.
So far I have not been seeing television ads here in the United States wooing potential vacationers to Barbados for the winter season. I have seen for several of the other Caribbean islands.
The chikungunya epidemic could see cancellations of some of those reservations and prospective travellers shifting to other “disease-free” destinations this upcoming winter season. Barbados is in for a rocky ride over the next five months.
The Air Passenger Duty (APD) is still in place in the United Kingdom and that seems not to be affecting travel to Barbados since the numbers are up. The APD will be made more fair sometime in 2015.
Of course the mere mention of “casino gambling” will cause the moral majority to “crawl out of the woodwork” to oppose the proposed venture, even though Barbados has arcades, bingo nights by church groups, and lotteries and other games of chances in abundance.
The Gap and its environs, with much of the infrastructure and superstructure already in place, could be the launch pad for revitalisation on the South Coast and resurrection of our ailing tourism.
– Carl Harper