Est.2007

Barbados Underground

Bringing News and Opinions to the People

Banner promoting anonymous crime reporting with a phone and contact number 1 800 TIPS (8477), featuring the Crime Stoppers logo and a QR code for submitting tips.

Tourism is NOT Our Business

← Back

Your message to the BLOGMASTER was sent

CONTACT THE BLOGMASTER ONLY

Submitted by Anthony Davis

bathroomIs tourism really our business, messieurs Sinckler and Sealy? Or is it just some catch phrase which is only supposed to sound good?

I have heard from reliable sources that a group of tourists from one of the cruise liners which was here on Sunday, November 16, 2014, made a stop at the Hastings Rocks Boardwalk so that the tourists could stretch their legs, and enjoy the breeze, the beach and the boardwalk. Lo and behold the bathrooms were locked down!

Pray tell me, gentlemen, do you think that that is good enough?

Have you fired so many people that it is affecting the basic operations of such necessary facilities which are indispensable to our people, and tourists?

If tourism is our business, who is running it?

Such a state of affairs is untenable!

Can you imagine the damage that has been done to Barbados’ image when someone pays thousands of dollars to go on a cruise, and then spends hundreds of dollars to take an island tour, then to be told that the bathrooms at a PUBLIC FACILITY are closed on a Sunday morning?

When those people return home they will complain to their relative travel agencies. This will sully the good name of Barbados. It should never happen that such facilities are locked down on any given day between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 or 6 p.m.!

You people need to climb down from your ivory towers sometimes and walk among the rest of the people in this country to see what’s going on instead of just driving around in your limousines for which the same people pay. I see that as a dereliction of your duties.

“Without trust words become the hollow sound of a wooden gong. With trust, words become life itself.” –  John Harold

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

33 responses to “Tourism is NOT Our Business”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    Today is a good example, big planes had to turnaround in the sky or delay taking off because nobody saw a legitimate grouse by the air traffic controllers as important. Now they know!

  2. Tourism is NOT Our Business – Vibe Audio StationVibe Audio Station

    […] Tourism is NOT Our Business […]

  3. Melva Isherwood Avatar
    Melva Isherwood

    I agree that the impression which a visitor gleans from a host country is of vital importance , on the future relationship which the visitor will entertain with that country. Barbados Tourism needs to work cooperatively with many stakeholders, in order to develop, maintain and nuruture its reputation as a primo tourist destination. With the current economic situation, Barbados needs to be even more vigilant. It is always the same problem of those in control not listening to what is going on around them: Power and privilege have a very cocooning effect.

  4. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Maybe there is a virus circulating. The same virus that attacked the West Indies players and the WICB.

    Out side the locked washroom should be an instructional diagram showing a fella peeing against a palin. That is the Bajan way. lol

  5. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Melva Isherwood | November 17, 2014 at 9:57 PM |
    “It is always the same problem of those in control not listening to what is going on around them: Power and privilege have a very cocooning effect.”

    What you must come to grip with is that the current crop of ‘those in control” is just a bunch of classless dirty incompetents bent on bringing the island down to its lowest ‘commonest’ denominator in terms of public hygiene standards.

    These people expect visitors to the island to behave just like them. Pissing along the roads and shitting in the bush is what those in control deem to be perfectly acceptable as one can smell from the aromatic-filled alleys in Bridgetown.
    Just have a look at or listen to the man calling himself the Minister of the Environment and you would understand where I am coming from.

  6. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Dear Mr Davis , these problems have been constantly highlighted, not only on this forum but also in the local news papers,but who is listening? Perhaps we only listen,and that’s a maybe, when such is highlighted in the British Daily Mail.
    Maybe we have become so accustomed to seeing our men and boys pulling out their dicks and pissing each and everywhere unashamedly, and shitting in some alleys of Bridgetown, that we probably believe that visitors to this country should adopt the “when in Rome do as the Romans do” mantra.
    But lets hope that the Government, or whoever is the Shit House Sheriff these days, do not respond by placing mobile chemical shit boxes on site, like they have done at our premier World Heritage Site , the Garrison just outside the Main Guard House.
    Tourism is definitely not our #1 or # 2 business. .
    The count down is on……Are we still striving to become a first world country by 2020?

  7. FearPlay Avatar
    FearPlay

    Is it really necessary to use such crass language in order to get a point across? Remember that one does not have to visit Barbados in order to judge us. Just a quick scan of any blog will help form an impression of who we are, where we have come from, what we are made of and maybe an indication of how we see ourselves.

  8. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Not my style, but sometimes its the only language that some people will sit up and take heed of.

  9. I only asking ???? Avatar
    I only asking ????

    you are right Fearplay totally and completely uncalled for, what an idiot brainless.

  10. John Hanson 1781-1782 i serve Avatar
    John Hanson 1781-1782 i serve

    Tourist is to Barbados like VISA is to the Untied States, More suckers for land fraud and more niggers to lock up to keep white man working ,
    laundering USD to avoid taxes to the houses CLICO and COW built in Barbados, Now Basel 3 Banking on their asses with the USA IRS,

  11. Waiting Avatar
    Waiting

    That is the kind of rude crude language miller and buggy patented, reading their gutter lingo directed not only at the much hated DLP but at Barbados and Barbadians in general is a chore and bore.

    As a people we have to be aggressive towards the things that can propel us forward. Two that concern most is the speed of doing business and the uncleanliness and garbage surrounding vagrants and others in the towns and areas of the country.

    The Town and Country Dept is often viciously blamed for delays. To their credit they give stout defenses as to why permissions take so long. The most heard is the relevant information from the applicant is not forthcoming. The same excuses hold true for most key government departments. Well officers get on the phones and get out the office and try your hardest to get the information. Its foreign exchange and jobs at stake when there are delays. Take matters into your hands within the law for Barbados sake. Be self starters. Show initiative and urgency.

    Then there are the mind boggling nasty vagrants and people roaming the city and other parts depositing their rubbish having the island look like a cess pool. Tourists are not going to pay thousands of dollars to come here to run into nasty vagrants and their stinking garbage. Thank goodness our world acclaimed beaches remain stunning and relatively clean.

    Again we must take action the SSA must be strengthened. Vagrants must be taken off the streets. Some of the fines imposed in the courts should be redirected to the SSA to procure the adequate trucks and equipment to keep garbage collection timely. Place heavier fines on the life threatening ZR’s, the life threatening motor cyclists and dangerous car drivers who take our roads for Bushy Park. Go after white collar crime more and hit them with hefty fines. Deploy garbage police with the power to fine people for littering. If all goes to plan we could retrench them in three years saving the treasury some money but leaving us with a cleaner country.

  12. Dr Love Avatar
    Dr Love

    I have news for y’all.
    All the slime, dirt, excrement and urine in Barbados particularly in our Capitol.
    Actually makes the Tourists feel GOOD.
    They survey it all and US and FEEL SO GOOD they DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE LIKE IT.
    Back to the ship, for a sanitizing shower and a chat over a nice dinner about “how those filthy Barbadians LIVE”.
    DONT denigrate it ,they see it as “local Colour” it adds to our “interestingness”.
    “OH GOODNEES ME” they titter or even twitter “DID YOU SEE THIS”??
    “they ACTUALLY SEEM TO BE HAPPY “

  13. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    …..and while they have no problem with pissing and littering all over the place, they are highly offended when anything but the Queen’s own English is used to detail the lotta shiite they do routinely…
    BBs…

  14. millertheanunnaki Avatar
    millertheanunnaki

    @ Waiting | November 18, 2014 at 1:00 AM |
    “That is the kind of rude crude language miller and buggy patented, reading their gutter lingo directed not only at the much hated DLP but at Barbados and Barbadians in general is a chore and bore.”

    That’s the kind of language that people of your class only can understand.
    Barbadians under the “visionary guidance and leadership” of the DLP are fast becoming some of the dirtiest filthiest uncaring people in the Caribbean, and for that matter in the World.

    For a long time people (both local and visitors) who have a genuine interest and concern for Barbados have been highlighting the most unhygienic state of the roads and landscape. They have made recommendations and proposals for improvement only to be laughed and scoffed at by political authorities including the inured Minister responsible for garbage and the environment with his the brazen ineptitude and classless disregard for even the need for a modicum of public hygiene standards. It boggles the mind when he can claim that the continuing piles of garbage seen on the streets are as ‘expected and in keeping with what Bajans are accustomed to’.
    What is so wrong with Colonel Buggy and his ilk crying out for a clean and hygienically safe Barbados which likes to promote itself as a premier tourist destination? The Colonel and others who express concern over the current state of hygiene have themselves lived and visited many countries with high standards of public hygiene and are only begging Barbadians to do much better; given their much bragged about high standards of education and living. He, along with others, know that Bajans are capable of making their surroundings spit and span as they are quite happy to do when looking after properties owned or controlled by white people.

    Why don’t you get your tourism minister to find out what the so-called thousands of cruise ship visitors who walk around Bridgetown think about the sanitary conditions prevailing in the much talked about World Heritage site? Where are the public conveniences that ought to be an integral part of such a tourists-promoted place? If you are concerned about the abuse of such a facility why not put measures in place? For example, introduction of a fee that can be refunded and spent at shops around Bridgetown.
    I am sure you have travelled to ‘classy’ places where such arrangements are in place.

    You have been warned about the fast deteriorating health and safety conditions (including the poor management of sewage) at the Oistins Bay Garden facility.
    What are you waiting for? An outbreak of some disease that will certainly find its way on the front pages of the UK media and scuttle what remains of your struggling tourism industry which will go, like sugar, the way of the dodo bird.

  15. Lincoln Carrington Harper Avatar
    Lincoln Carrington Harper

    @ Bush Tea | November 18, 2014 at 7:38 AM |
    ….
    “.and while they have no problem with pissing and littering all over the place, they are highly offended when anything but the Queen’s own English is used to detail the lotta shiite they do routinely…
    BBs…”

    Some people have a nose for fecal material, which, in some countries is used as a fertilizer in its fresh state. The closure of the boardwalk’s toilet on a Sunday morning may have just saved our benighted country from being undated by biting off a bit more than we can chew from the tourist butt!

  16. David Avatar
    David

    The issue of non standard language must be interpreted in context and culture. It may explain why BU’s position which is questioned by some from time to time. We sometimes wallow in the minutiae.

  17. John Hanson 1781-1782- I SERVE1788- 1792 BARBADOES Avatar
    John Hanson 1781-1782- I SERVE1788- 1792 BARBADOES

    Bush tea ,Stay in their stupid asses , what and where do they look to solve and see problems?
    Clear Title Deeds Kicking them in their Non collecting TAX VAT Asssets , All the problem Roots are in the LAND , Study it , kill the long talk.

    IMF , MOODYS< WB S&P knows , how long before Bajan see and read and the BLP and DLP admit , fix, and move ahead.

  18. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Back to the Grantley Adams airport fiasco yesterday.There was a caller to Dennis Johnson last week on Brasstacks lamenting the working conditions in the Control Tower.Further that a temporary ac unit was a threat to staff safety, in an emergency.
    The question arises that with all the management of the GAIA in place,that is airport management,the GAIA board of management,the permanent secretary in the ministry of the Civil Aviation,the PS in the ministry of Tourism,the PS in the Ministry of the Civil Service(which I am told is the portfolio of the Prime Minister),all of these big able and intelligent people could not have determined the solution to the concerns hopefully expressed by the Technical Director of the GAIA?
    Are all these people so careless with the future of this country? When one’s position is not clearly defined,fingers are pointed at everybody.
    This development yesterday must not be repeated and heads should roll for that fiasco.Taxpayers are being taken for a ride by some civil servants, most politicians and their political appointees

  19. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ Gabriel
    This is too blatant and stupid to be blamed on carelessness
    This is a clear case of gross incompetence and institutionalized inertia.
    Everyone in the damn country seems to be following the “head in the sand” lead….but then ….what else can they do if the top man’s default approach is to hide and do nothing ….and them come with some shiite talk….

  20. Damian Avatar
    Damian

    http://www.ted.com/talks/joi_ito_want_to_innovate_become_a_now_ist?language=en

  21. David Avatar
    David

    There is a man on the radio calling to complain from the BRA office in Speightown at 10:15 and no cashier having reached at 8:15. Is the government broke?

  22. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    Bushie
    I was being kind.The inertia in this country is unbelievable and it does not help that the top man is not in de facto control.

  23. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    How interesting that some want to clean up the language used by some of us in this forum, but are otherwise dumb on the question of cleaning up the widespread smelly garbage and un -hygenic practices we see everyday in this country.
    If you think that my language is rude and crude, you should listen in to what many visitors to this country have to say about this once beautiful island .

  24. Dr Love Avatar
    Dr Love

    Report in UK Daily mail:

    An unprecedented outbreak of the Chikungunya virus is affecting islands including Barbados, St Lucia and the Grenadines, where many UK holidaymakers flock during the festive season

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2834622/Britons-holidaying-Caribbean-warned-deadly-virus-sweeping-islands-37-return-UK-suffering-agonising-symptoms.html#ixzz3JRjOZIH3
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    Yesterday, there were fears that British tourists may not realise the dangers until it is too late, amid reports that tour operators are playing down the problem

    Over 700,000 suspected cases have been reported in the region
    Health agencies say over 100 people have died from the virus

    AM I READING RIGHT !!???
    700,000 cases in the region!!!!
    WTF.

  25. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    “Vagrants should be taken off the streets”

    And put where?

    I don’t know where you fellas frequent but I have to say I have never seen anyone defecating in any alley in Bridgetown – and offhand I don’t remember seeing anyone watering the ground either, at least not recently. But tell me – does central Bridgetown have public toilets? Maybe it’s all in the nose.

  26. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Dr Love

    Not quite. It’s called ‘local colour’ and ‘atmosphere’. The beggars of course invite us all to discover compassion instead of responding to these things like ‘tut-tutting’ Pharisees. Aint it great to defecate in your own toilet at home? It DOES make you differently superior doesn’t it?

  27. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    I don’t know where you fellas frequent but I have to say I have never seen anyone defecating in any alley in Bridgetown – and offhand I don’t remember seeing anyone watering the ground either, at least not recently. But tell me – does central Bridgetown have public toilets? Maybe it’s all in the nose.
    …………………………………………………………………………………………..
    Someday try walking through Amen Alley,a quick getaway between the Houses of Parliament and the Central Bank, and you will see evidential deposits.
    I had to wait about ten minutes to take the following photo of the same Amen Alley, as the overflowing garbage bins shown were being constantly used as urinals.
    Public Toilets in Bridgetown ? Yes, The tree on the right is for Men ,and the shrubs on the left is for boys. Have you not heard of Pissy Alley, or to be less crass and crude, “urination Boulevard.?”
    http://i.imgur.com/ZSOG3qV.jpg

  28. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Well, Amen to that.

  29. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    Mind this “getaway”, which I do remember being quaintly noisome, is indeed appropriately placed between Sodom and Gomorrah and it might be thought exactly the right place to demonstrate. Of course, I have to ask Colonel what you were actually doing lurking in the cesspits of the great Amen with a camera. Err…….

  30. robert ross Avatar
    robert ross

    You will have seen that Mr Davis has had a letter on the substance of this post published in the Nation today. Is this the same Mr Davis who, in another letter, got his knickers in a twist about the exposure of satanic bra straps in every alley in Bridgetown?

  31. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Oh Canada!

    http://www.barbadostoday.bb/2014/11/20/travel-changes/

  32. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    Travel changes
    Barbadians to be screened before entering Canada.
    ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
    For a minute I thought it said “screwed”. As that appears to be the game with us both domestically, regionally and internationally.

                 xxxxxxxxx               xxxxxxxxxxx

    On another note. Kampla is advising that Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to join the CCJ would be via a referendum. Is this the same Trinidad and Tobago which unilaterally conned the other Caricom countries into building the Headquarters of the CCJ in Port of Spain?

  33. Colonel Buggy Avatar
    Colonel Buggy

    @ robert ross
    I have to ask Colonel what you were actually doing lurking in the cesspits of the great Amen with a camera. Err…….
    ……………………………………………………………………….
    Some of us , unlike the many who rule over us, get a true picture, moreso with a Mark 1 Eyeball, when traversing the main streets ,as well as the back streets of Bridgetown and other places.
    Recently the Minister of Transport, I think it was , embarked on a street sign placement exercise. Places such as these “cess pits” with some historic attachments, will now be more easily accessed by visitors, who may be attracted to them in the first place, via some clinical brochure.

The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.

Trending

Discover more from Barbados Underground

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading