Head of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority, Glen Beache, has complained about the size of the nation’s tourism budget, relative to that of other destinations in the region.
Addressing a town hall meeting in Montreal, Canada on Friday, Beache told the gathering of mostly Vincentians, that tourism marketers in SVG have to be “so much more creative than our neighbours”.
He said what makes it much more difficult for St. Vincent and the Grenadines is that it is a multi-island destination — “31 islands and cays; Barbados is one, St. Lucia is one; well, Grenada is three, but still not 32.
“And this will put things more into perspective for you. The budget of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Tourism Authority is EC$13 million. The budget of the Barbados Tourism Board is Bds$99 million, which comes to about US$50 million. The budget of Bahamas is US$89 million. The budget of St. Lucia is EC$30 million,” said Beache, a former Minister of Tourism.
“So, I give you that to understand, yes, I know you might see some of the other destinations, I don’t want you to think we are not out there.
“We are out there, but if you are not reading certain publications, looking at certain shows, you are not going to see us. We have to be more focused, we know where our bread and butter is, we know where our strengths are. When they increase our budget a bit more, I will put something out there so you can see and show off to your friends and say, you see, here is St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I wasn’t lying to you.”
While the budget of the Tourism Authority is EC$13 million, opposition lawmakers have further complained that the full amount is never disbursed to the Tourism Authority, even as tourism remains the mainstay of the Vincentian economy.
Seen from another perspective:
The budget is small because we do not have the money coming in from tourism like these other countries. We do not have the money coming in because our government has backward economics. Tourism, in many ways gets tax breaks but when all the other sectors do not get tax breaks and instead are very over-taxed, that effects tourism too, meaning tourism too suffers from Ralph’s high taxation of everything not tourism…If our “brilliant” government officials do a study on our tourism economics they will certainly find out that tourists have to pay more to come and stay in SVG than elsewhere, thus, they do not want to come here. Value for the dollar is worse in SVG than Barbados or St Lucia. Ralph and his gang of lousy economists have to wake-up and realize they are not going to be able to trick large amounts of people into coming here; they have to instead give them REAL value.
Given the small number and mediocre to poor quality of our mainland tourist attractions, $13 million is more than they are worth spending on.
As for the delightful Grenadines, they sell themselves for free by their strong reviews on travel sites and comments by happy visitors on social media.