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The mixed sand beach (coral and volcanic rock) at Villa, SVI.
The mixed sand beach (coral and volcanic rock) at Villa, SVI.
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The views expressed herein are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions or editorial position of iWitness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected]

As this long series of essays slowly winds to an end, I have left until now what may be the best regional two-case comparative evidence that Argyle International Airport (AIA) will fail to meet its visitor expectations because there was no compelling reason for its construction.

Much can be learned from a side-by-side assessment of international tourism and allied features in Barbados and the mainland of St. Vincent (St. Vincent Island or SVI) if only because the two islands are very similar in some ways and very different in others, exactly what is needed for good comparative analysis.

Being roughly at the same latitude and longitude and separated by only 179 km (111 miles) of ocean, being about the same size in area (see Table 1), having a similar history of sugar plantation slavery under British Crown colonial rule, and now sharing a nearly identical system of governance and a relatively free market economy, it would be hard to find two islands more suitable for comparison.

Table 1. A comparison of key features: Barbados vs. St. Vincent Island

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Barbados St. Vincent Island
Population size 282,000 104,500
Area 432 sq km (167 sq mi) 344 sq km (133 sq mi)
Geology white coral limestone black volcanic lava
Terrain flat; gently rolling hilly; mountainous
Climate subtropical subtropical
History former sugar-cane slave society former sugar-cane slave society
hotel development late 1800s 1920s-1940s
Regional flights 1939 1940s or thereabout
Regular overseas flights 1953
Pure white sand beaches 61 (some pink) 1 (imported sand)
Per capita GDP $EC 44,000 $EC 18,700
Total visitors (2015)** 1,303,272 157,460
Stayover visitors    591,872 75,381
Number of rooms          5,500     750
Cruise ship passengers    711,400 82,079
Landed cruise passengers    121,578 13,953*
Direct GDP tourism contribution 10.8 percent 5.4 percent

*Based on the same 17 percent landed cruise ship passengers as Barbados

**Excludes yacht visitors

Source: Data from three Caribbean travel sites.

But there are many differences as well, as Table 1 clearly shows. Barbados has nearly three times the population of St. Vincent, a product of: (1) its much earlier British colonial settlement than SVI (1625 vs. 1763) which translated into nearly a 140-year head start in the lucrative slave-based sugar industry that by the first years of the 19th century was already in decline and (2) its much flatter terrain meant cane could be grown in every corner of the land (versus SVI where the vast, mountainous, very wet, and hard to reach interior has never been cultivated) thereby allowing for a much larger slave and free labour force.

This larger population size is partly responsible for the fact that Barbados had over eight times more total guests in 2015 than SVI because some of these visitors were permanent or long-term diaspora residents returning home on holiday, to conduct business, or for some other purpose. But this accounts for a small portion of overall visitors (and barely a handful of cruise ship passengers), most of whom are non-Bajan North American and European tourists.

Another difference between Barbados and SVI is the antiquity of tourism on the two islands. Barbados has been an important tourist destination for so long that there is a book written about it:

“… [F]rom the early days of tourism … the steamship era of the late 1800s, with the establishment of that gracious Victorian lady the Marine Hotel … until World War II, Heritage and Health were the two big attractions of Barbados. The Marine opened in 1878 but was massively expanded in 1887. The tramline was established in 1885, and smaller hotels quickly grew up along its route, from Bridgetown and the Garrison (the original Seaview) through Hastings (Ocean View, Balmoral and others, all the way to St. Lawrence, while the ‘health resorts’ of the Crane and Atlantis soon became famous”.

The area from Crane Beach to Bridgetown is the entire span from the southeast to the southwest portions of the island, equivalent to the coastline between Stubbs and Lowmans Bay on our mainland.

The famous Crane Beach Hotel which was opened in 1887 and totally renovated and expanded just a few years ago and renamed the Crane Resort is a national treasure known around the world:

The site of a small commercial port in the mid-18th century, Crane Beach and its surrounding district assumed the name of the area’s most recognisable scene – the raising and lowering of cargo by a crane. A mecca of cool breezes, Crane Beach attracted scores of the island’s plantation owners and prosperous merchants who sought the reputed ‘healing’ powers of its waters” (Crane Resort visitors site).

Crane Beach
Pink sand Crane Beach as seen from the overlooking Crane Resort.

In short, tourism in Barbados was well established long before the invention of the airplane, more testimony that existing attractions draw visitors, not the other way around. Actually, Barbados’ aviation history began when a single-engine plane from Guadeloupe touched down on the fifth fairway of the Rockley Golf Club in 1929. Ten years later, the first scheduled passenger service from Trinidad began from the grass runway of Seawell International Airport, renamed to Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) in 1977, located almost on the edge of the southern tip of Barbados.

The first terminal was built in 1949, regularly scheduled flights to England began in 1953, and new routes added as required by external demand for them. The airport has been renovated and expanded on a regular basis since its inception: a new terminal was built in 1956; the present air traffic control tower was completed in 1976; between 2000 and the present there has been a major upgrading of the runways, taxiways, parking aprons, and approach lighting;

a new arrivals terminal has been built; the older terminal has been renovated; new spacious departure lounges and an expanded duty-free shopping area, executive lounge, and restaurants have been added.

All this has been done to meet a growing inflow of international and regional passengers: tourist arrivals tripled from around 200,000 to around 600,000 between 1976 and 2016.

Today, some 19 international and regional passenger carriers, plus many charter and cargo carriers, have regularly-scheduled flights arriving and departing the aviation hub of the Eastern Caribbean, handling daily flights to and from the other Caribbean islands and connecting to major cities in the US, Canada, UK and Europe.

The lesson to be learned from this is the same one I have been relentlessly preaching for over two years: airports are built and enlarged to address an actual or reasonably expected rise in the supply of passengers, not the reverse.

Conversely, the story of tourism and aviation on SVI has been so limited that there is not much of a story to tell. Many of us older heads know that the Kingstown Park Guest House, probably the site of the first Government House, was owned and managed by the aristocratic mulatto spinster, Nesta Paynter, a civil servant who ran the establishment for decades until she sold it in her old age to the first of at least three different owners of what is now Grenadine House at Kingstown Park.

Many old timers will also remember Olive’s Hotel behind the gas station on Back Street owned by outstanding entrepreneur Sammy Ballantyne, and the old Haddon Hotel at Frenches, refurbished a few year ago, owned by another well-regarded businessman, Silky DaSilva, as well as the tiny Heron Hotel, still functioning, and the Blue Caribbean (long converted into retail and office space) on Bay Street.

What about the rest of our hotel and guest house history, such as its presence in the early 20th century before these other establishments were in business? All I could find is the following photo, possibly taken as early as the 1920s, suggesting there were some seaside health resorts catering to regional and overseas tourists on the mainland 100 years ago. (I assume that any others were at the Indian Bay/Villa area.) As for the details, nobody knows and nobody cares.

The same holds true of our aviation history though there is indirect evidence (via an Internet site that I cannot fully access) that Arnos Vale Airport (later renamed E. T. Joshua International Airport) began regularly scheduled flights to other Caribbean destinations during the 1940s. (To be sure, a careful search of our archives and old editions of The Vincentian newspaper would tell the complete story but I am not home and cannot do this research from abroad.)

What I do know is that most people continued to travel by boat to surrounding destinations long after regular air travel began to and from SVI. This included the thousands of migrants who went to Barbados and Trinidad to search for work between the mid 1940s and at least the mid 1970s, the hundreds of persons who returned from Aruba, Curacao, and Trinidad where they had often spent decades working during same period, and the thousands who migrated to England between the early 1950s and mid-1960s in search of a better life. The latter cohort travelled all the way to England by boat from Kingstown even though they could have travelled there (at far greater expense but with much more comfort) via aircraft using the Arnos Vale and Seawell airports. So much for needing planes, regional or international, to encourage people to travel long distances when it is in their interest to do so.

SVI’s early hotels
One of SVI’s early hotels as shown in a 1920-1930 photo.

What then accounts for the huge eight-fold disparity in stopover tourist visitors between Barbados and SVI? It cannot be the sun and the sea which we both share; it cannot be the difference in population numbers which I have already discussed; it cannot be the large variation in overall wealth, per capita GDP, and infrastructure between the countries because these are a product of: (1) Barbados’ long and profitable sugarcane industry (the result of a terrain ideally suited to the growing of cane) that produced a continuity of estate ownership in the same family lines which, in turn, fostered a commitment to infrastructure and other development that was lacking on SVI where estates changed hands repeatedly or were owned mainly by British merchant and banking interests even before the abolition of slavery in 1834 and (2) a slow but steady increase in tourism earnings, especially after the Second World War, augmented by wealth derived from the financial and information services, light industry, construction, and other sectors beginning in the 1960s that are far more developed in Barbados than they are here. (The huge size of the non-tourist sector in Barbados also explains why tourism accounts for less than 11 percent of direct GDP.)

 

It cannot be because Barbados has over seven times more hotel rooms than we do — these rooms were built in response to past increases and reasonable prospects of future gains; it cannot be the presence of an international airport because the origin and expansion of the airport was the result of steady increases in overseas visitors; and it cannot be because of the existence of dozens of special attractions (except for the premier one) on a flat, densely packed island with no forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, or nature reserves (and only one underground tourist cave), that collectively do not exceed what is available in nearby islands, including our own.

Still, all this negative evidence needs to be tempered by four qualifications.

First, Barbados does have a vibrant nightlife, elegant shopping in attractive, clean, and uncongested Bridgetown (because, like most other Caribbean countries, Barbados prohibits the kind of choking street vending that has nearly destroyed our capital), excellent and varied cuisine, five golf courses, and several other attractions (which can easily be perused by visiting the TripAdvisor travel site). But these all developed to complement the needs of the growing number of visitors who went there mainly for something else.

Careenage area in Bridgetown
Inviting, litter-free, and uncongested Careenage area in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Second, several luxury hotels and resorts have indeed been built or renovated to attract new visitors – Sandy Lane, Sandals, Crane Resort, and others – who might go elsewhere to satisfy their extravagant needs. But this does not negate the overall trend that, except at the super-elite and low budget margins, hospitality supply is built on hospitality demand.

Third, in a vibrant and growing tourist market, new hotels and resorts are constructed on the reasonable expectation that growth will continue in a world constantly getting richer, more populated, and increasingly cosmopolitan.

Fourth, tourism in Barbados has never been an economic cure-all in this higher middle-income country. The economy continues to show signs of weakness after going into deep recession in the 1990s, off-shore finance, agriculture, fishing, rum production and export, and light manufacturing still make a substantial contribution to overall GNP, and dozens of hotels representing hundreds of rooms have been closed, are for sale, or are barely surviving in the cutthroat hospitality industry.

Despite these four qualifications, the answer to my question, “what then accounts for the huge eight-fold disparity in stopover tourist visitors between Barbados and SVI” lies in Table 1 and is … surprise, surprise … Barbados’ 61 white and pink sand beaches, most of them public, all them clean, all of them natural, all of them tempting.

Rundown Little Tokyo

Rundown Little Tokyo area surrounding the cenotaph in the heart of Kingstown.

 

This and allied attractions is why so many more of our wealthy citizens – in both numbers and proportion – have always flown to Barbados on holiday than Bajans have travelled here to enjoy our mainland.

Given what I have argued here and elsewhere about our mainland tourism potential, especially our declining tourist numbers over the past 16 years, why have we built an international airport on an island with one bogus white sand beach on a small stretch of Buccament Bay whose now-shuttered resort instantly reduced our mainland hotel room capacity by nearly 15 percent on December 14, 2016, was only able to complete 102 of its promised 1,200 rooms, and is unlikely to every reopen because the size and complexity of its debts and multitude of competing investors?

Ask Ralph.

***

This is the 41st in a series of essays on the folly of the proposed Argyle International Airport.

My other AIA essays are listed below:

    1. Get ready for a November election!
    2. Lessons for Argyle Airport from Canada’s Montreal–Mirabel Int’l
    3. Lessons for Argyle Int’l Airport from the cruise industry
    4. Lessons from Target Canada for Argyle Int’l Airport
    5. Lessons from Trinidad & Tobago for Argyle Int’l Airport
    6. The Dark Side of Tourism: Lessons for Argyle Airport
    7. Why Argyle Won’t Fly: Lessons from Dominica
    8. Ken Boyea and the Phantom City at Arnos Vale
    9. Airport Envy Vincy-Style
    10. Fully realising our country’s tourism potential
    11. Airport without a cause
    12. The unnatural place for an international airport
    13. The Potemkin Folly at Argyle
    14. False patriotism and deceitful promises at Argyle
    15. Airport politics and betrayal Vincy-Style
    16. Phony airport completion election promises, Vincy-style
    17. Is Argyle Airport really a ‘huge game-changer for us?’
    18. Has the cat got your tongue, Prime Minister?
    19. More proof that Argyle won’t fly
    20. Our very own Vincentian cargo cult at Argyle
    21. The missing Argyle Airport feasibility studies
    22. The world’s four most amazing abandoned airports
    23. Farming, fishing, and foolish talk about Argyle International Airport
    24. Argyle Airport amateur hour
    25. Vincent’s place in the world of travel
    26. Investing in St. Vincent’s Tourism Industry
    27. The Argyle Airport prophecy: what the numbers say
    28. Why Qatar? Why St. Vincent and the Grenadines?
    29. Did the IMF drink the Comrade’s Kool-Aid?
    30. Foolish words about Argyle International Airport
    31. ‘If I come, you will build it’: Lessons from the Maldives for Argyle Airport
    32. Urban lessons for Argyle International Airport
    33. Who really lands at Arnos Vale?
    34. No ticky, No washy — Argyle-Style
    35. We have met the Vincentian tourism enemy and he is us
    36. Hotel Saint Vincent
    37. Why St. Vincent Island has so few tourists 
    38. Why Bequia is a gem of the Antilles
    39. Why seeing is believing in the Caribbean tourism industry
    40. St. Vincent’s cruise ship numbers are much lower than we think

 C. ben-David

The opinions presented in this content belong to the author and may not necessarily reflect the perspectives or editorial stance of iWitness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected].

16 replies on “Lessons from Barbados for Argyle Airport”

  1. All the information you provide in your essays should be a wake-up call to policy makers and planners, instead many seem to be living in a fantasy world of false dreams, taking the rest of us into economic decline.
    To make the airport actually work is going to take a lot of work, a lot of time and intelligent people. Time we have. The ability to work is missing and we seem to be in short supply of intelligent people in government. They fail to realize that lowering taxes to lower prices and create jobs in any and all industries is the first step in a long process to even begin to create an ability for us to even afford to have and maintain an airport. Maybe we need someone in the opposition who is able to convince the people that we are a failed economy, and explain how we can correct it. We will continue into poverty unless a change is made.

    1. Lostpet, unfortunatly you really are still making the assumption that the airport can be made to pay for itself. It simply cannot, with all the engineering problems which will remain problems.

      The cost is the killer. LP if you owned a shop and bought things to sell which are worth 50 cents tops retail and you have got to sell them at $10 dollars because you paid $9 dollars what will eventually happen? You will go bankrupt because you would never be able to generate the necessary revenue to fund the operation. That is the problem with Argyle it took ten years to build a 4 year project. The cost of 10 years against 4 years is the killer, it increased the cost of the airport by at least a 100%.

      We have an expensive airport built on lies and political trickery to a sub standard verging on, if not downright dangerous to the travelling public.

      1. Peter, you and I are are outcastes for what we have written about Argyle airport. But sometimes outcastes have the contrarian ability to see through all the bullshit we have been fed since 2005.

        A lot of former Argyle skeptics will now blindly jump on the airport bandwagon now that it is partially operational. And, they will be lead by the hypocrites at NDP headquarters.

        You, I, and one or two others will soon be the last men standing for the truth.

        But we are both strong individuals who would never place blind and ignorant nationalism ahead of the search for truth and justice.

        Remember all the millions who blindly followed their Führer to the promised land of death, destruction, and the Holocaust?

        Yes, I grossly exaggerate for effect but we do actually have a mini-Holucaust waiting to burn us up at Argyle.

        Remember the few righteous ones who refused to do so in Nazi Germany and the conquered lands, risking and giving their lives in the process?

        Sometimes the righteous minority is just plain right! Peter, this is one of those times.

        Forget our petty bickering of the past and walk tall with me hand in hand.

        If there was ever a time that people like us with different perspectives needed to join forces and speak with one loud voice, it is now.

  2. Brown Boy USA says:

    In this country, it’s do whatever you like and don’t ask question because everything done for the ‘betterment’ of the country, REALLY? I wish our people could wake up from the self gratification attitude and see what’s really happening in our country and hold our politicians accountable.

    1. If the opposition and the media (except this one) doesn’t hold the government accountable, how can you expect ordinary people to do so?

      The NDP is now claiming that it always supported construction of an international airport and only opposed the poor planning and financing.

      Not true.

      In fact, the party was silent or actually opposed the airport’s construction until the eve of the 2010 election when, to their shame, they jumped on the ULP airport bandwagon.

      So why did a know nothing nobody like me living overseas and a few others at home and abroad like Peter Binose, Patrick Ferrari, and Herbert Samuel have to take the bull by the horns by exposing this boondoggle for the scam that it is?

      And what happened to our local intellectual elite? Oh, I forgot, most sold out to the Comrade years ago.

      The fallout from Argyle will haunt and curse us for decades to come.

      1. Dave from Toronto says:

        The fallout from Argyle will haunt us for decades if we all sit on your hands while reading and believing articles written by people who are waiting for it to fail just to say “I told you so”.

        However, it will be a cracking success if politicians, businesses AND individual citizens embrace the opportunities for tourism, trade, investment, etc.

        A rowing boat will never go forward if all rowers just sit there and stare at each other waiting for someone else to do the rowing. It would also not go forward if some rowers are rowing in reverse or complaining about the size of the waves. It will only get propelled swiftly when all rowers are rowing in unison.

      2. Although I cannot deny any of your information, I personally am not against AN airport. This one is unfortunately a fiasco. it was rushed and poorly conceived and planned. I would have done it over a long period of time (although this airport was done over a long period of time, and I am sure we will find out its cost was much higher than we have been told) so it would not destroy the economy as it has. I also would have made sure it was well planned (pointed in the right direction and placed in a better place) and not the stillbirth we now have.

      3. That is our problem as a people, we see others such as the politicians and media as mechanisms to address and solve problems. Does it really matters whether the opposition (NDP) supported or did not supported the airport? The fact of the matter is that the airport has been built (not completed) but it is there. Therefore, it would be pointless for the opposition to oppose the project at this point because it is there and millions of dollars has already been spent. Too many times we blame the politicians, but we are the ones to allow them to get away with what they are doing because we (the people) sit back and wait for others to address the problem than joining forces to get things done. This is still our county, never mind our lands are being sold to foreigners at an alarming rate. People change country, not politicians and the media…you know that.

      4. David my dear internet policeman PhD Professor. It is pointless having those glowing credentials if you cannot be truthful.

        The NDP have always said it always supported construction of an international airport and only opposed the poor planning and financing, perhaps even where it is now located. That is 100% correct now David you must stop bending the truth.

        I have never said I do not want an airport I have always said I always supported construction of an international airport and only opposed the poor planning and financing and engineering.

        I have never heard anyone including Patrick of Haz say they do not want an airport. It is only you that does not want an airport.

        You must stop telling all these lies and then trying to involve others in your stupidity.

        The airport could have been built in four years which would have at least halved the cost of the airport. Properly planned and controlled financiers would have funded the airport at real low rates. Instead the country has been lumbered with debts that will remain chains on our economy for the next hundred years.

        At the right price the airport would have been an asset instead it is a liability.

        Your continual ripping it apart without explaining the reasons it will not be an asset is simply the same as you telling lies, over and over again.

        We are all aware of the problems with the airport I have made sure of that, despite your jealousy overcoming you and you attacking and attempting to belittle everything that I submit. Throwing up all sorts of crap, you David are little more than a manufacturer and fabricator of crap.

        I notice that you have been severely scolded and made to look stupid by VM at the other place, about this very piece which apparently contains a series of untruths.

        I will list those incorrect statements shortly as laid out by VM.

  3. Dave from Toronto says:

    To C. b-D,

    [This comment is in response to an earlier post re the title “St.Vincent’s Cruise Ship Numbers Are Lower Than We Think” I’m not sure why it takes the moderator such a long time to approve some comments versus others……I decided to re-post it here]

    I don’t see why you would categorize my responses as anti-intellectual. Sometimes, intellectuals need to parachute down from their ivory towers to understand what is really important on the ground. I think you are missing the whole point on the value of infrastructure such as airports on a country’s (long-term) development. Yes, I am interested in SVG’s long-term development. After all, I still have property there, I still pay taxes and I intend to return home at some point in the future.

    Now, to respond to your your points in sequence:

    1. I did not say that writing about history is a waste of time. I think you need to re-read your own article. The last sentence states ” ……why on God’s earth are we building an international airport at argyle?” Such a statement is relevant to support a thesis on why an airport should not be built. This would have been relevant to argue in 2007, before the construction started. Thesis – arguments – conclusion. Hey, you can’t more intellectual than that. I’m sure you would agree on that point. The point that I’ve been making over the past year or so, largely in response to you, is that we are beyond the stage of your concluding statement. The airport has already been built. Why are you still arguing over why it’s being built? Also, I think you are confusing history versus the news. Yes, I understand that news is history, theoretically. However, the study of history has been one of analyzing and reporting on past events after a sufficient time has elapsed to digest what actually happened to determine successes and failures. Hence, from a historical perspective, again, your timing is off again by 10 years. 10 seems to be your lucky number. AIA hasn’t even started operation. You need to wait at least 10 years and then report on whether it was a success or failure. If it’s bankrupt at that point, then we will all pat you on the back and commend you for being right all along. Take the Invasion of Iraq for example. Many at the time thought it was a real success. Now, 10 years later, they are now reaching a different conclusions. My point is that such evaluation of history takes time before reaching a proper conclusion.

    2 & 3. If you had written 10 years ago against the building of AIA, then if your arguments were strong, you might have been able to persuade politicians and the general public to abandon the plans. After all, SVG is a democracy. The way a democracy works, as I understand, it for each party to pitch its plans and ideas and then let the electorate decide whose plans are worth voting for. The ruling party did, the people voted, they were re-elected several times based on that mandate. What more can you ask for? Either you think that the people of SVG are dumb – to be fooled that many times, SVG is not a democracy or you don’t believe in democracy. Let me know what side of the fence you are on.

    4. I think that you, and anyone who shares that opinion, are naive to believe that a government would build an airport just to win elections. As you mentioned, it cost us $800 million (and I did make a small monetary contribution) to construct AIA. Why on earth would any government spend that kind of money in order to win elections? It would have made more sense to give money to the people in the form transfer payments – handouts. Heck, with such a plan, a party might stay in power for 100 years.

    Also, I never implied that the only function of an airport is to move tourists. Although this could be one of the results, infrastructure spending could provide much more to SVG. In macroeconomics, it’s called the multiplier effect. In a nutshell the benefits of AIA will exceed the costs through a stimulus effect on the overall growth of the economy. More tourists will arrive, leading to increase supply of hotels, restaurants, etc., thus creating jobs in the service sector. There will also be increased foreign investment from the diaspora as well as foreigners owing to the ease of access to the island. Hey, if I have a rental property, it’s much easier to fly direct to AIA, rather than wasting a day at Grantley Adams. I could be in and out to address issues if needed. It also permit local products to be exported easily and quickly to foreign markets. There are many more spinoff effects as well. Researching those positive multiplier effects is where an intellectual can earn his salt.

    5. Well, I didn’t really mean for you to keep your thoughts to yourself. However, I think it would be beneficial to the readers if you could provide a more balanced approach. Sometimes, one need to look at the broader picture. If you were in USA or Canada, for example, I would say to go ahead and say what’s on your mind without limit. This is because there are many avenues to express ones opinion. Hence, it’s easy to find opposing opinions – resulting in a balance of opinion. In SVG, however, the situation is much different. There are limited avenues, such as this publication (Thank you IWNSVG) for discourse on these topic. Hence, your opinion emphasizing doom and gloom could have a negative impact on public opinion with respect to the many benefits that could be had in the future from the investment in AIA.

    7. I never said it offends me. I just think that it’s one-sided and potentially misleading. I think you should also clearly state your name, affiliation and credentials. Are you just a private citizen/ university professor conducting intellectual research/professional economist/representative of a nearby island afraid of competition from SVG/a disgruntled former civil servant? I think such information have relevance on how the public perceive the statements and conclusions being drawn.

  4. Dave from Toronto, you miss the point once again or just refuse to accept our intrinsic limitations, like so many others. This airport would simply not allow us to “embrace the opportunities for tourism, trade, investment, etc.” because these do not exist on the mainland.
    The airport is a means of transportation, nothing more, nothing less.
    Where there are no people and goods to transport, little trade, even less investment and no “etc.” what good is an international airport — except as a poppy show to win elections?
    You, like countless others, assume that, “St. Vincent Island has lots of potential” and that the airport will unleash that potential. I resolutely dispute that contention as I will show in my last three essays.
    This is not a matter of patriotism or working together. It is about a cold, hard calculation of our opportunities, constraints, and liabilities, an assessment of which has forced me (and a handful of others) to reluctantly conclude that building this airport was a big mistake and that running and maintaining it will be a big drag on our overall growth.

    1. Dave from Toronto says:

      C. b-D,

      We could debate the merits of building the airport til the cows come home. I understand that you were opposed to its construction. As I mentioned before, we will need to wait at least 10 years to determine whether or not it was a success. I’m sure there will be lot of professional economists as well as the Finance Ministry’s staff pouring over the economic data. Maybe, you should ask someone there to share details of their econometric models. Then make the comparison 10 years out.

      In the meantime, I think that you are refusing to accept that the airport has been constructed. My question to you is, what are you proposing that we do with the airport? Are you implying that we should just let it sit idle for the goats to roam? Should it be torn down? A lot of us are waiting for your response.

    2. YOU deliberately skewed your analysis , and you should be ashamed of Yourself
      . The Name of this state is St. Vincent & the Grenadines , and you damn well
      know that . So in your analysis YOU should have included the Grenadines , but
      to slant the comparison between St. Vincent & Barbados , YOU deliberately
      left out the Grenadines , which has Beaches with white sand ;You really are a piece of work . The Grenadines are also St. Vincent & vice versa .

      In Hawaii , there are also beaches with black sand . Yet Tourists go there to bathe . In essence you are insinuating that Black sand is some sort of curse ,
      Beaches are only black because of volcanic Eruptions . It aint that the inhabitants in St. Vincent got up one day years ago and said lets make the
      Sand Black on some of the Beaches .

      Mt Wynn is going to be developed never mind its Black sand , and there is nothing that You and those who are small minded can do about it . WE are
      our own worst Enemy , You and others want to make the AIA a failure , so then
      that You & others of Your Ilk can rejoice . You are no better than the woman who stated that she wanted a Tsunami to come & destroy the Argyle International Airport .

      I am beginning to believe that a lot of Mentally ill persons were released from the Mental Home . It seems that YOU & OTHERS are blithely unaware of the
      fact that ANYTHING that harms SVG , it aint only the Government that will
      suffer , ALL Vincentians will suffer . So it is time that VINCENTIANS regardless
      of Political affiliation , pray that the AIA is a success , rather than bad mouthing the AIA . Lost on You & others is the fact that the AIA is built for ALL
      VINCENTIANS . Not just for people in the ULP . WE NEED TO STOP THIS SMALL MINDED PETTINESS .

  5. With all due respect the Author of these articles , has utterly refused to state the following facts . Now let us look at these very important facts :

    1. St. Vincent is of volcanic origins , Barbados formation is of Coral . Now this obviously to
    clear thinking Persons has seriously issues , why to compare St. Vincent to Barbados is
    at best utter Stupidity . Because Barbados is comparatively Flat , and all its Beaches have
    white sand . St. Vincent on the other hand in comparison to Barbados is mountainous . As a result , WE have Beaches that have Black Sand , and also a scarcity of large tracts of Flat
    Lands . BTW , in Hawaii there are Black sand beaches .

    2. In the days when the only mode of Transportation was by large Boats , Barbados , being
    the most Easterly of the Countries in the Region was the first Port of Call , obviously it developed faster than St. Vincent and other Islands .

    3. From the time Barbados was colonized it was always in control of the British this is easily
    discernable by the fact that ALL the names of Places in Barbados , have English names , that
    aint the case with many other islands in the Region . Now this obviously means that the development of Barbados was not interrupted by wars against other European Countries .
    That was not the case in say St. Vincent ; St. Lucia & Dominica where England fought wars
    not only against the Caribs , but also the French . This is easily discerned by the names of
    places in the Islands I have cited . My opinion is that the bitter & fierce resistance of the Caribs in St. Vincent under the leadership of Chatoyer MUST be considered , regarding the development of St. Vincent . I don’t recall the British having to fight the Caribs in Barbados .

    4. Countries with Flat lands have no difficulty finding sites to build Airports . As I have cited in this Newspaper before , the NDP was in Office for 17 years and they did Nothing ; Lost on the
    Author of these series of articles is the fact that Hoteliers & persons willing to invest in the Tourist Sector , will not invest in Countries that do not have an International Airport . In essence it is like which came first ” THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG ” .

    Frankly I would like to know from the Author if he was in the hotel business , he would put down a Hotel in a Country that did not have an International Airport ? Obvious it will take time
    for St. Vincent to be fully developed . However WE are on the Right Track to get , but this aint
    something that will instantaneously get up to the speed of Barbados .

    Many here seem happy to spread Gloom & Doom , perhaps because they simply do not want
    any Government Project to succeed , never mind that the Country & the People in St. Vincent
    stand to benefit from the Airport . The fact that a Vincentian woman , stated that she wanted
    a Tsunami to come and destroy the Argyle Airport was & is appalling . I don’t recall anyone
    in the Opposition Party stating that she should have retracted her remarks .

    THE ARGYLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WAS NOT BUILT ONLY FOR PERSONS IN THE

    ULP , IT WAS BUILT FOR ALL VINCENTIANS ; AND TO ULTIMATELY IMPROVE THE

    ECONOMY OF ST. VINCENT & THE GRENADINES .

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