Very good information. If we go way back and did research as to how so many others outside of Africa have entered into the MOTHER COUNTRY and became very wealthy, but the natives gains less instead of more. If Barbados gains access to allow traveling to Ghana, this could surely be a big help to the economy. All alternatives that can be helpful at this point in time is worth looking into. I do agree 110% with your suggestion.

Err. Is not Dakar in Senegal. Quite a ride from Ghana?

@ Straight Talk

Metinks he really means “Accra”. You think?

Kammie knows very well that we have a very basic problem with how we treat each other. He knows that even from school days, the fairer the complexion; the beter the treatment. So it is with tourism.
Black Americans have complained over the years about the treatment meted out to them.An oft heard complaint being that while the “white “diners next to them , who came and found them seated, are having dessert, they are now at first course.
Black bajan people do not treat blacks well.Let us fix that first.

Kammie this piece is sooo funny LOLLLLL. It is good to dream however this is one dream that may never be realized. Independent and Why said it all. Bajan Blacks do not believe that other Bajans and Black foreigners should be treated the same as whites. Yes Kammie, we would have to change the colour of our GOD first for something like this to ever occur.

Here is information for the skeptics who waste brain power on why things cannot work rather on finding ways to make things happen.

Barbados to Dakar, Senegal is 2,825 miles
Senegal to Accra Ghana is 1327.92 miles

The total distance from London, United Kingdom to Accra, Ghana is 3,165 miles.

We can be remain anchored in the past and do nothing or try and have either success or failure as an outcome.

Well, while it may be true that we have this (apparent) animosity towards one another, it is a bit of a puzzle to understand why we would (in effect) help and protect illegal immigrants living in the community.

In recent times we have complained about the number of illegal Guyanese in Barbados. How do they manage to stay undetected and the investigations department at the Immigration department can’t find them?

I think this animosity towards our own is coming not from the “lower” classes. The proof lies in the fact that the bad treatment comes from the Immigration Department itself. The complaints about the Guyanese and the phobia are not coming from the masses but a select few.

My experience is that the masses welcome our own with open arms. You name them and you will find them among the masses, Africans, Vincentians, St. Lucians, etc.

I will therefore side with Kammie here. There is a certain set of people always making noise about these issues. They will cite the law to remove these so-called illegal immigrants out of pure animosity. I side with the masses too and say, this is God’s earth and immigrant status is a mere technicality.

The treatment meted out to those Ghanians who came here was by our own middle class while our local people mobilised to help them out. Take them into their homes, etc. to save Barbados an international embarrassment perpetrated by those whom you think should know better.

I think our “upper” classes would prefer to welcome a “Stanford” and all these shady men with money before they let their own colour in. It speaks to the mentality which we should purge. The difference between the masses and the upper classes is the amount of education. Am I to believe that the more education, the more ignorant or lost? Is this a reflection of the damage our education system is doing to our island?

In this the Year for People of African Descent, it would seem that we have already lost. So then, this exercise is a waste of time? We must develop a new intelligensia because what prevails has failed us. We need leaders with a new mindset and attitude towards their own.

I appreciate all the feedback and please lets not loose hope. Prosperity to you all for the future.

@ru4real, why was I given excellent service as a black person in Ghana? Now you have given what you consider to be a downside, please give us the upside. Is it only me who have noticed that nothing good is being said about attracting black middle class African tourist or Bajan hotel workers? Could it be the scars of slavery which encourages us to think negative about our race!

Kammie, I can tell you of the days when Government was advised to send up its own satellite which at the time was not much compared to what it is now. It was within our means but the Caribbean governments refused. Speak to a man named Prof. Neville Duncan, UWI, Mona.

Here is the Laurie article:

ON THE OTHER HAND: Tourism master plan

By Peter Laurie | Sun, January 02, 2011 – 12:00 AM

The Minister of Tourism has invited Barbadians to contribute to a tourism master plan that he’s coordinating.

Here’s my two cents’ worth:

• First, figure out what is the carrying capacity of the island for visitors; work backwards and plan for it so that our resources can cope. Barbados is a tiny, fragile environment; we can’t simply let tourism develop unplanned.

• Never forget that Barbados is primarily an upmarket destination. Forgetting this in the quest for volume will inevitably destroy our tourism.

• In keeping with the foregoing, permit one well-regulated upmarket casino on the West Coast. This should have a reputation as one of the luxury casinos of the world. Forty per cent of shares in the casino should be offered to the Barbadian public.

• Find out if there is a positive correlation between the marketing and promotion done by the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) and the number of visitors to the island. If there isn’t one, cut back on promotion. Spend the money on something else.

• The BTA no longer needs costly overseas offices. Close them down.

• Barbados is not and never should be Disney World or any other fantasy holiday. The appeal and strength of Barbadian tourism is its integration into the life of all Barbadians. Visitors love us for what we are; there’s no need to create a fantasy. So don’t allow enclave tourism to get a hold. Keep all-inclusives to a minimum. It’s much easier, more tempting and probably more profitable to create enclave tourism and banish the ‘troublesome natives’ from the tourism plant. In Barbados that’s a recipe for disaster. Let’s take the difficult road; it’s more ethical and more profitable in the long run to plan and practise “open” tourism that involves and integrates as many Barbadians as possible into the tourism industry.

• Make sure every beach is both legally and practically open to Barbadians.

• Our unique environment is at the heart of our appeal as a destination. The spoiling of our environment (not just the beaches) will destroy tourism (and destroy Barbados for our children). Already the West Coast is beginning to look tacky. This eventually will have to be remedied at considerable cost. Please protect the East Coast from Pico Tenerife to Ragged Point. Besides, this area has loads of potential for ecological and rural tourism: a scenic park along the top of Hackleton’s Cliff; an arts & crafts village with ancillary attractions on Chalky Mount; hiking, biking, horseback riding tours in St Joseph and St Andrew. We are limited only by our imagination.

• Incorporate rum shops into tourism by putting a tourism plaque on rum shops that wish to take part and will meet minimum standards. But please! Don’t let the bureaucrats impose absurd conditions on the shops. Part of the charm of rum shops is their rough-and-ready character. All you require is sanitary and functioning toilets and a clean kitchen.

• Don’t marginalise street vendors. Street vending and street markets are big attractions in most top-rate destinations. Incorporate well-regulated street vending into your tourism plan upfront, not as an afterthought.

• Continue revitalising Bridgetown: knock down the Treasury Building and put a boutique hotel with a rooftop restaurant and small conference facilities there; get the Peirhead project moving; knock down Pelican Village; build a housing and office complex there; incorporate the shops from Pelican into an Oistins-type permanent street fair/village running from the port to Carlisle House on the sea side of the road.

• Lack of traffic management is killing our island. Make a plan to shuttle people to and from work safely and on time so they leave their cars at home or in satellite parking areas. Look at best practices elsewhere, especially in other successful small islands. Consider ferries and water taxis along the West and South Coasts.

• Make the airport a wonderful service attraction and experience that visitors will talk about.

Happy New Year.

Peter Laurie is a retired diplomat and a commentator on social issues; email plaurie@caribsurf.com

Kammie wrote:
“From Barbados to Toronto-Canada is 4 hours, Miami is 4 hours
New York is 5 hours,”

Actually Kammie, Toronto is 5:20 [2106 nm]; New York is about 4:40 [1813 nm] and Miami is around 3:20. Dakar is 2450 nm from Barbados [Great Circle distance] and in a B767 cruising at M.80 the flying time would be just about what you said, 6:00 gate-to-gate. BGI-DKR would be an easy range for a B757 or B767 The only hitch would be the ETOPS regulations which would require fairly long alternate airports [Santa Maria or Sal in the Azores] and that would impact the useful payload of a B737NG such as BeeWee flies. A 757 or 767 would do it easily.

Happy New Year!

@bajandave,what happened, other than persons were duped into flying to Barbados for jobs. What happened to Cellate Construction, Walter Mattheson and why so many bajans getting fleeced by Chinese companies. Why everytime its Africa we dig dirt without balance? Probably, simple a case of the mis-education and indoctrination to hate our owe. Is there anything positive about Africa? How many white hippies visit Barbados and never leave?

@AV8R,thanks for the info, I hope the skeptics are appeased. You sound like my friend who flies for the UN in Africa. Happy New Year to you and your family.

@Kammie
I have no problem with us opening our tourism market to Africa – actually when the Pan African Commission was set up in the late 1990s it was supposed to look into ventures such as this. Let’s face it, “the travelling middle-class Ghanaians” have a wide variety of options to choose from within their own continent, and islands like the Seychelles and Canary Islands. What will we do with our tourism product that will convince them to look our way? Peter Laurie has some interesting suggestions noted here.

These arguments coming for not having African tourists. I find this rather amazing. Dawn, “Barbados is not ready for Africa.” Been hearing that since Adam was a lad from all kinds of angles. Not only with respect to Barbados but the entire African Diaspora.

We are sadly mistaken. I have never met an African who does not embrace members of the Diaspora. In most cases they cannot even tell whether you are African or Caribbean because the accents are so similar.

If we have so many white tourists of all types and characters on our shores, what is wrong with Africans, who will no doubt spend more than the average white tourist. It’s in our blood to spend what we don’t have.

Even from a purely economic position, it makes sense to market to African tourists. The other arguments are all fallacies.

Many Africans in the UK call the West Indians slave children. My aunt had a good one for them when they called her a slave child. She told them that they sold the best and only the crap stayed behind.

We are so backward in Barbados we still think that once it come from a foreigner it right. Kammie you ar absolutely correct but when we refuse to think that one of our own is not good enough to be the representative fur St.John and and a coolie could come on our TV and say that for Banks to do better bajans got to drink 10% more of the alcohol they produce ,and cannot get their product on the International market to bring in some foreign exchange to Barbadfos and nobody say anything it just shows how intelligent we really are??????

@ alpha. I gave a very detailed explanation of this in one of Kimmie’s discussions on FB recently.
I went on to describe problems I faced with some Africans while living here in the UK. You can look it up if you do not mind.