Oh yeah and too damn expensive and what you really paying for that you can’t get elsewhere????? After a while just gets boring.

We have cut down many of our beautiful trees, we have replaced grass with concrete, we have torn down or let beautiful old building go to ruin, we allow garbage to pollute our streets and beaches. We do not have a beautification program where EVERYONE in Barbados can participate. We see have created hideous edifices that does nothing for the aesthetics. As we drive long the countryside unkempt embankments and drains flank the roadsides. We are becoming more and more of a dump. St. Lucia looks more inviting and more relaxing. Many have gotten used to the garbage/junk that surrounds them that it has now become beautiful to them and see no need to change.

Interesting to note the hotel which features prominently on the St. Lucia promo, a side issue?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/adfeatures/article-2137776/Saint-Lucia.html

Here is the link to the Advocate quoting the Governor:

http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=24522

Somebody at the CBB is monitoring the blogs? The Governor conveniently forgets to include the contribution of Merricks to forex. What Barbadians need to hear is what is the status of the project! It is called being transparent.

@Anonymous

You can checkout St. Lucia’s full year data here:

http://www.eccb-centralbank.org/Media/tourism_data_as_at_Jan2012.XLS

Numbers look good however you slice it. Note that there is a breakout of the numbers with ‘Excursionist’ listed separate.

I am tired seeing ads on TV for every Tourist destination except Barbados.

Canadians keep telling me how great Barbados is, including a CEO who spent a Week at Almond Beach Village last year with his wife and 2 children and had a great time.

The BTA should do more advertising where people have money.

“demand for detached homes is so strong that sales jumped 22 per cent across the GTA last month, which, in turn, pushed the average price of all homes up to CAD$517,556 (an 8.5 per cent increase over April 2011).

The only travel agency in Toronto dedicated to promoting Barbados is Marville and the majority or their clients are Bajan canadians.

The BTA needs to work harder than ever in every market. The well known slogan “when the going gets tough the tough get going”. applies.

Open your eyes folks. This is only but the highlighting of an age in which the nation will find extremely difficult to pull itself out of. The advantage of St. Lucia’s tourism industry is can be attributed to the fact that it offers a huge plethora of opportunities for eco-tourism as they have a relatively small population size and density rate compared to that of Bim Not to mention that St. Lucia has more Jungles, mountains, and river-falls that rivals the pristine platinum beaches and turquoise waters of Barbados. When one does the comparison, Bim’s landscape is fast being eaten up by reckless re-planning of and lack of support in national parks and reserves that would otherwise preserve the nation’s natural environment.

We still have time to impose a “return” Act that would enable botanists and biologists as well as horticulturalists to take the seeds from plants in what little remaining jungle we have and replant them on the open spaces of land and impose strict laws that prohibit land burning, dumping, and other harmful acts that would hamper the delicate process of “natural reclamation”. This should also function as a signal for Bajans to pressure the government to not only act in preserving the nation’s landscape to maintain an edge in tourism, but to also call for a redrafting of policy right in which it is Highly restrictive and in favour of Bajan citizens. Not only that, but there should be a call for the HUGE prioritization of agricultural plots and the cancelling of G.M.O. planting along with pesticides and insecticides. Insecticides and Pesticides have been found to contain agents that upset and damage ecological stability in the environment and it permeates through the nation’s groundwater supply (which is why the water tastes so rancid) which could be potentially harmful.

This is the critical point in which the government vies for the continuation of sacrificing land and ecology for the sake of tourism (a FAILING industry), or to employ initiatives for the advancement in SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRY. Bim is definitely at an advantage point to achieve this; however it will take a solid group of innovative minds with a common goal. We are a nation that lacks a brand,and it is starting to reflect severely not just within our administration, economy, and bureaucracy, but our very own environment. We have absolutely no reputable company that belongs to us. MALIBU and MOUNT GAY RUM both belong to French Holding Groups. It is time that we realize that our future as nation lies in our capacity to acknowledge that our future is very much so intertwined with the global economy, but at the same time we must establish a foundation by Bajans for Bajans in order to successfully compete and truly compete in the global economy.

OUR NATIONAL MOTTO IS “PRIDE AND INDUSTRY” NOT “PRIDE AND SERVICE” FOR GOD’S SAKE! It is time that we bajans start embodying our country’s motto, for we CANNOT HAVE PRIDE IF WE HAVE NO INDUSTRIOUS SPIRIT! WE MUST LET THE GOVERNMENT KNOW THAT THEY HAVE LET THEIR PRIDE GET AHEAD OF THEM AT THE EXPENSE OF THE COUNTRY’S CAPACITY TO COMPETE. DAMMIT, IS IT NOT DISTRESSING TO ANY OF YOU THAT AS OF 2012 THE NATION EN MASSE POST-SLAVERY STILL HAS NO TRULY ESTABLISHED NETWORK OF INHERITANCES? We have neglected this long enough. It’s time we realize that Bim needs to act in her own favour to safeguard her competitive future!

And I forgot to add that we seem to have no pride in our surroundings, just look around the neighbourhoods.

@ Islandgal246

Take a gander at my petition, I have listed cohesive measures in which the government could take to implement such measures. I for one am willing and ready to get dirty to develop my country because I know no one else will. Now it is a matter of getting other bajans on board and realizing our nation’s true potential!

St. Lucia is a beautiful Island. It is 238 square miles compared to Barbados 166 sq. miles.

Do they have the flat land mass to build Hotels to accomodate comparable numbers of Tourists?
Barbados gets about 600,000 per year.

Instead of “cuttin we eye” at St.Lucia focus on making Barbados a better Tourist destination. That is the job of the Ministry of tourism, the BTA and the hoteliers.

Now if we had a ferry between Barbados and st.Lucia.mmmmmmmm

Heard from someone who was a witness that there was an incident at the Crane beach this afternoon (Sunday May 6) where a man was smacked head first into the sand after being caught up by one of the Crane waves and was left unconscious. He was dragged out of the sea and laid out flat on the sand while they waited an hour and a half for an ambulance to arrive to take him to emergency. Before the ambulance got there the tide started coming in and the bystanders were working frantically to keep the sea from washing over him by building sand dykes and channels in the sand as they did not want to have to move the victim with the possibility that he might have suffered a spinal cord injury. I was told the man was taken away after the ambulance crew finally arrived with an oxygen mask on his face and that he was slipping in and out of consciousness.

At the time I just assumed the victim was a visitor and not a local, but I can’t confirm that for sure.

I hope for the best for the victim. It sounds from the nature of the injury that this has the potential to be a very debilitating or perhaps even life threatening injury.

Just one more area where our infrastructure in Barbados is lacking is in the provision of a modern, properly equipped and staffed ambulance service which can offer reasonable response time to emergencies like this one in something significantly less than an hour and a half..

@enuff

Do we need CSME to engage in functional cooperation?

But functional cooperation agreed to in a weak framework will not suffice just think of the elusive flying fish agreement.

Heard some talk of a regional ferry last year. Think it was mentioned during a discussion on Tourism which aired on Caribvision…. I think marketing the region as a whole and offering the island hopping experience is a great idea.

@ Brudah Bim

Just out of curiousity , what industries do you have in mind?

@coldstorm2k8

Indeed, T&T opposition leader Rowley has been kicking up a stink because the acquisition of Air Jamaica by CAL is sucking about 700 million dollar in fuel subsidies. Affordable regional travel seems a pipe dream.

@ Frafgile80

The Government of Barbados should push to establish the nation’s economy through heavy emphasis on DOMESTIC INDUSTRY (ie. through AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES, Small to medium sized Scientific technologies manufacturing & Innovative technology firms, Luxury technologies, Domestically developed luxury niche markets through a series of small and local owned boutiques; RENEWABLE ENERGY technologies and production, PHARMACEUTICALS manufacturing, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, and DOMESTICALLYOWNED TOURISM companies as well as building DOMESTICALLY OWNED FINANCE INSTITUTIONS.

@ Fragile80,
EXACTLY!!! MY GOD, I THINK THERE’S Hope yet. Please refere to this link to sign my petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/protocal4bim/

I have been teaching in ST LUCIA for the last eight months. Once you have driven or sailed to see the Pitons or bathed in the very hot water of the Sulphur Springs, there is not all that much in my opinion to do. I dont particularly find St Lucians that friendly either

However, the treatment my wife and I recieved during our week at Almond Morgan Beach was superb! bi was also impressed with the penchant for the chefs to use a lot of local foods
I think St Lucia is a relatively new destination and is thus attractive.
Most of the folk we met were from the UK. This is in keeping with the poster above who opined that serious advertising during the world cup is now paying off.

As an old tired destination we need proper marketing! ….and new ideas!

@GEORGIE PORGIE, “As an old tired destination we need proper marketing! ….and new ideas!”

Barbados is blessed with Sun,Sea and Sand. It is also easy to build and maintain infrastructure

The Ministry of Tourism and the BTA spend $60million a year marketing Barbados. They need to do a better job.

New ideas? Hopefully the well paid BTA gurus will come up with some.

Think more like 100 million now. maybe they should join force with the bhta and have a single universal plan for advertising Barbados and building the brand.

@ Hants
“Barbados is blessed with Sun,Sea and Sand. It is also easy to build and maintain infrastructure. The Ministry of Tourism and the BTA spend $60million a year marketing Barbados. They need to do a better job.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@ Fair & Balanced
“The Barbados government needs to build off shore islands as laid out in their manifesto these fresh new acres would bring tremendous excitement to our destination not to mention be the site of stunning resorts.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It shows that neither of you haven’t THE SLIGHTEST CLUE AS TO ENABLE BARBADOS TO BECOME GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE. The principles that you vomit out essentially places Barbados into further debt and creates no real revenues Further propositions for white elephant projects creates no real GDP growth and will further increase he nation’s debt. Should the government actually follow with your methods, the nation would surely go bankrupt in UNDER A DECADE!

You can talk of Sea and sand and waters all you want, but those are not resources that are avidly viable for they are highly susceptible to losing appeal. What the government needs to do is to seek to effectively harness their Human capital through a series of long term measures that would otherwise create real GDP growth through PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRY, NOT SERVICE BASED INDUSTRY.

“Hants” unforgivingly makes the ridiculous posit that ” It is also easy to build and maintain infrastructure.”, yet he never even bothered to ask AT WHO’S EXPENSE? And surely if HE KNEW ANYTHING about economics, he would realize that it would inevitably come at the tax payer’s DOLLAR to Pay for such infrastructure, not to mention the future costs in maintenance. And god knows that the pathetic idea that “Fair & Balanced” posed by building island resorts off the coasts of the island would just place even more financial burdens on the public.That is neither “fair” nor “baanced” to the bajan citizen!! It would seal the deal for the stupid politicians for sure and would cause a public uproar that would most certainly tarnish the nation’s international image.

Ignorance, Just plain ignorance. You people should just stop typing, you’re making a disgrace of us Bajans!

I wonder if anyone has ever done a comparasion on the performance of the BTA against the St. Lucia Tourist Board?
What is the measureable return on investment (ROI) when you compare their budgets. How many are employed at both organisations (both home and away).
I don’t think we should be discouraged from asking these questions and anticipating accurate answers.

fair and balanced , comments couldn’t be more fair and balanced

There is an insularity which exist, we know it. There is merit in pursuing functional cooperation. St. Lucia, Dominca and several of the other islands have characteristics which the more mature Barbados product does not. We don’t need CSME to pursue just a bilateral.