Diversifying tourism is a priority for the Premier
While highlighting the need for aggressive strategies to raise revenues for the territory’s economy, Premier and Minister of Tourism Dr Natalio Wheatley said his government is looking to fall back on the familiar tourism industry to help combat financial challenges the Virgin Islands is facing.
Dr Wheatley said his government has had lots of discussions on placing more focus on the tourism sector and how best to diversify it to attract more visitors to the territory.
He also admitted the Virgin Islands is facing several challenges in the financial services sector and the tourism sector which are the two main pillars holding up the BVI’s economy.
“[These are] challenges we are able to overcome because we have been robust and resilient and certainly, we have done a good job in those sectors because we have been resilient and certainly, we need to diversify our tourism product and diversify our economy,” Dr Wheatley said.
The Tourism Minister said visitors have also spoken about making it easier to come to the BVI as currently, there are no direct flights from major tourist markets to the territory.
“That is providing airlift to the BVI, direct flights from the United States of America and we see the impact that has had on other jurisdictions. Dominica and Anguilla are just being a few that recently added direct airlift from the United States of America,” Dr Wheatley said.
“We’d also see if we can attract investments to build some properties here that can help us when we have things such as event tourism … We want to do sports tourism and have a property where persons can come and stay,” the Premier added.
The Tourism Minister clarified that he is not indicating he is displeased with the properties here but he admitted there are not enough beds to accommodate all the visitors that want to come to the BVI and boost the growth of the tourism sector.
“There are a lot of great ideas, but I think it is time for us to implement those ideas and aggressively raise revenues because as you have said, we have quite a lot of financial challenges,” Dr Wheatley stated.
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Premier living in fairy land. VIP crushed tourism with all the bad publicity from the Customs raids in 2021/22 and the smuggling scandal last month. Tourists are done with the BVI. The only future visitors will be cruise ship passengers and the bareboat charter parties. Time to disband the Tourist Board because it’s out of date. The cruise ship and charter boat companies control the number of visitors to the BVI now and forever.
@Dream on – I keep asking, “How many people are employed full time at the Tourist Board to deal solely with the grievous damage that HM Customs dumps on the territory with every move Customs makes?”
Let’s start with adjusting the deplorable attitude that many customs and immigration officials hence. They all need to be retrained. Next let’s stop shaking visitors down for arrival fees, departures fees… etc. What civilized country does that?
Lets start by firing the most anti tourist official in the country, the Head of Customs.
Why Slow, is this person still weilding power?
He is ceratainly living in cloud cuskoo land if he thinks there are not enough hotel rooms. No hotel is full at the moment, most are running way below the levels of 2016-17 pre Irma. And that is with several pf them shut or gone put of business.
Why are hotels the only BVI businesses that pay a sales tax?
After they were harassed and chased away by the head coach and government official #1 ???
The more things change, the more they stay the same!
It appears as if everything is a priority for this guy as long as you ask it in his face.
– Is an olympic swimming pool a priority? He said yes. Did he take any actions? No.
– Rebuilding the school. Priority? Yes. Action. Not really.
And now tourism…
I wonder if the health sector will become priority soon? Things not looking so good over there!
We really in trouble. Look who is the tourism minister and junior minister. The BVI in trouble.
So what happened to the direct flight from MIA to tola that the past F Primer had planned. He was also the one responsible for a lot of mud slinging with prominent stake holders in the industry. Statistics will show that the sailing industry attracts most of our clientele but the green flag party see it fit to ruffle them feathers. GTHOH!!
Same old regurgitated sh#t. I’m so glad I don’t live there anymore. The BVI is a disaster zone. You really need to wipe the slate clean and start over. It’s so sad really because your territory could be the envy of the world but instead you have massive corruption, trash everywhere, sewerage in the street, crap roads, unfriendly immigration, hostile customs boss, a greedy lying corrupt leader, not to mention the ridiculous living costs.
VIP/NDP all the same bullsh*t. What you need is a revolution or at the very least a completely new way of thinking.
I was there for Irma, do you remember when people came together and helped each other. Money was pretty irrelevant then, it was about helping your neighbors and friends, you need to go back to that way of thinking otherwise you are doomed.
I welcome all replies to this post, both positive and negative.
Radio Rich.
Strongly agree with you! It’s the mentality of the People and their efforts to be the changes that are needed. Whether Residents, Visitors or Citizens, if We care enough about each Other, we would focus on keeping Our Living Areas and surrounding Communities looking presentable and safe, thus providing for a better Environment. Some People just yapping yapping, not taking Action, meanwhile they are the Ones creating the havoc.
4441 NW 73 ave Lauderhill FL 33319
Dump derelict vehicles & boats. Eye-sore!!!
The BVI has been in a nose dive since Irma in 2017….First we had a flood then 2 devastating hurricanes, up came the pandemic and now our leader is in a overseas jail facing some serious crimes. To top it all off the UK is contemplating taking us over
Build new properties??Nope we don’t need more – we need better policy to attract people to the ones here. Currently Treasure Isle is closed because there is not enough need and that is perfect for sports tourism at the complex and AO Shirley. Hodges Creek hasn’t been fixed yet because the owner doesn’t see the footfall yet. Long Bay is still being finished. The Government could have built Prospect Reef with the 8M it spent on the COI. There are two hotels in West End which are long stay due to not enough people.
Get rid of the Covid restrictions, do as ONeal did and pay towards airlift so airlines have plenty of scheduled on time flights and get rid of all the miserable people in immigration and customs who refuse to improve their customer service. Fix the roads, be nice to the charter companies and visiting yachtsman, fix the burning hill.
The private industry is carrying the BVI but the Government needs to step up and sort out it’s policies, the infrastructure and the crap people in its departments that deal with tourism.
VI will cancelling the travel portal on 6/1/22 hopefully BVI will do the same to help promote more tourist into the territory.
Go back to the pre-covid entry policies and ferry schedules would be helpful. I moved several BVI bareboat trips to Europe because of the ease of entry.
A. Change the slogan back to “Nature’s little secret”. Who made the “BVI love”? It sounds off not catchy and not a full thought… maybe “from BVI with love” but slogan is off.
B. No need for buildings. The essence of the island is the somewhat exclusivity. Less is more. Yes you have less inventory but you maximize revenue with higher demand. Your building more space yet you can’t fill the space you have? Think before u speak and stop just saying stuff to sound good.
C. Be more welcoming. The locals have antiquated thoughts and actions you want tourist dollars but the love doesn’t seem genuine anymore. My visits since Irma have been different the people act different.
D. Activities and Accessibility to them. There should be tourist welcoming activities all over the island not just main parts. There was a unique bar/restaurant in east end in a local area things like that bring money directly to districts.
E. Legalize cannabis it’s legal everywhere else pretty much and is the booming rev stream right now. Tourist come to relax. Now we feel betrayed we can’t smoke a lil joint there but gov heads are smuggling tons of kilos of cocaine? Very hypocritical. If y’all gonna sell drugs make it legally beneficial to everyone. Fair is fair.
Def one of the best islands and tourism can flourish beautifully with the right team.
How about those digital nomad visas?
the slogan now is “BVILOVEs money”
Been to BVI many times for yacht charter. No more
Customs people rude. Only place I have ever been to where you have to pay to leave, garbage everywhere,
sunken derelict boats all over, really bad roads
. And time to have boats use their holding tanks for sewage.
You can start by firing all the customs agents and airport workers, as well as the rude taxi drivers on Tola (fat one sitting on bench at airport). They chased us away……and we bareboated 2 times a year for several years. We found new cruising grounds, they actually want us there!
Is the @BVIGovernment still making it difficult for USVI charters to visit the @BVIslands_UK?
#corruption
https://newsofstjohn.com/bvi-update-why-usvi-charter-companies-are-keeping-it-local/
Is anyone keeping track of the number of priorities the Premier says he has? Methinks it a lot.
Too much SKULDUGGERY and MACHIAVALLIANISM
You’d think that after 20+ years, we’d get the picture on direct flights to Miami. A Territory of 25,000 where most of the visitors are either on cruise ships or day trips is never going to have the required passenger load factor to make regular direct flights viable. If it did, chances are it probably would be for round trip prices in the 4 figure range, and the schedule probably once a week and maybe not at all certain times of the year. Cheaper for most to do via PR and Cape Air. We’d all like the money tree in the yard too.
If you want more tourist money, focus on villa rentals and charter boats. Work on the customer experience, cut out all the fees arriving, being here, leaving. Find another way to collect those earnings but quit the nickel and dime. Be pleasant and be grateful for tourists’ visits in the same way a farmer is grateful for rain. Don’t be sour for not getting tipped right for rudeor substandard work. Learn to do better next time. That’s how it was a few decades ago and that’s what brought people here until we decided we were just interested in the contents of their wallets.
To date, no Chief Minister or Premier has seriously concerned themselves with expanding tourism in any meaningful way. In fact, some have done their level best to deter tourism.
1. Customs & Immigration staff are routinely rude, dismissive, and overbearing toward visitors. It has been this way for at least 30 years.
2. Each Chief Minister and Premier has always placed a priority on their (pie-in-the-sky) airlift dreams, rather than dealing with reality. The reality is that the vast majority of visitors arrive by ferry. But the ferry terminals are way outdated and woefully inadequate … as are the ferries themselves.
3. Despite attempts by various people associated with KATS and other organizations to train local people, it appears most simply aren’t interested in becoming part of the yacht charter industry. Yet, this industry constantly has to go begging to hire people required for the businesses to run properly.
I believe this matter needs to be dealt with at the high school level, with classes for children aimed at becoming involved in tourism on all levels and in ALL sectors, including the charter industry.
4. On top of the difficulties in hiring staff, the current attempts to sink the charter industry have done a really good job of turning off visiting sailors for fear that when they get here, they will be boarded by government officials and their holiday may be ruined, through no fault of their own.
5. The roads are in very poor condition, the place is overgrown and littered with garbage and while some parts of the islands are gorgeous, others look like slum areas, with sewage running in the streets.
I could go on with another 9 or 10 things that need immediate attention, but if even 2 or 3 of these issues were dealt with effectively and put right, it would go a long way to helping tourism get back on its feet.
The people in the industry is why BVI Watersports started with the aim of getting every BVI child to learn how to kayak, SUP and Sail in Primary School. So far we have 5 high school / college students who are training to be Instructors. It’s slow because we work from donations as programs are low cost / no cost but we are getting there.
I thought the COI had more than enough to keep him busy. How they going about dealing with an economic pillar when no plans have been brought forward to the public on the way forward with the country? Are these people for real right about now?
My wife and I have been coming to the BVI’s for many years and although I agree that the amount of trash and derilect vehicles has increased due to the devastation caused by the hurricaines I will say that the BVI islanders are so of the nicest people I have ever met. From the taxi drivers to the supermarket workers we were never made to feel like we were intruders.I have been to other places where this is not the case. Believe me that is so important to building back the tourist industry.
If he cared at all, he would re open the BVI to the USVI boats. We used to bring in tons of money every day !