Gov't Making Attempts To Wow Investors For Beef Island Development
BVI Platinum News | 19 Opinions
Published: June 04, 2014 2:17 pm AST
Published: June 04, 2014 2:17 pm AST
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Photo Credit: File
Premier Hon. Dr. Orlando Smith during a recent press conference said the project is still on the table and it was promoted at a recent investment conference in Europe.
"As far as the Beef Island project is concerned, that again was promoted as one of our investment opportunities. We also identified, mentioned or spoke about Prospect Reef...and any other investment opportunity...We have had several people who particularly at our session…expressed interest," he told reporters.
Last year, Premier Smith reminded persons that the project started in 2004 and would have allowed for the hotel and gulf course along with other types of housing; however, the development was opposed for environmental reasons.
The Beef Island project was embroiled in a court battle, which ended when the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling, paving the way for the developers to proceed to build a luxury resort, golf course and marina on approximately 659 acres at Beef Island.
Virgin Islands Environmental Council (VIEC) contended that parts of the project, especially the golf course plan, would disrupt the eco system of Hans Creek, which they contended is a protected area under the laws of the Virgin Islands.
VIEC proceeded to sue the developer, Quorum and the BVI Government.
The Court of Appeal found that Hans Creek was not validly declared to be a protected area and by extension, the decision of the Minister to approve the group´s proposed development of the BVI project granted to Quorum in January 2007, was not illegal.
Prior to taking office, Deputy Premier and Minister for Natural Resources and Labour, Hon. Dr. Kedrick Pickering stated that the tourism industry of the BVI will not move forward if the proposed project is not implemented.
"I know I will receive a lot of flak for this, but we the BVI, our tourism industry, the future of our tourism, cannot go ahead without the Beef Island development. I will take my licks, even if it costs me an election, but we cannot move forward with our tourism product without development in Beef Island. The BVI needs a five star hotel, we need mega yacht facilities, we need a golf course," Dr. Pickering strongly expressed.
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It’s a no brainer.
Mass tourism destroys the environment that attracts all visitors. We can just about claim to have a beautiful environment still, despite the efforts of successive governments to destroy it. So yes, we do better to aim for fewer very wealthy tourists than keep encouraging more mass tourists to come trample our environment until it dead.
Some few people might make money from the mass tourism sector (yes, Romney, that’s you) but it is bad for us overall.
Anyhow, we BVIslanders don’t care. We just want everything we can get. Right away.
Careful.
As far as I see, the more tourist, the likely we are to make the money as the wealth is more broadly distributed
Financial services crashing so you all better pray the tourists keep coming in large numbers. We DO NOT have a 3rd pillar. Time some of us wake up and understand what is going on in our coutry. You all dont want tourists, you dont want investments..how the hell is the government going to sustain us? On what? struppsss man
Like the Hon. Picko said it is about management. The Diffrence between the BVI and a place like Barbados is that Barbados is a country with a plan for the benefit of its people and where policy is enforced. Barbadians would never sit down and accept the corrupt BS that goes down here.
Did you read the recent news about Barbados? I beg you hard hush you hear?
omg i was preaching this for years. dem damn politician in it for the tourists and rich and not them own people.
I agree with this. If you think about it you need to look at both the smaller and the larger picture. Looking at our immediate surroundings, we have the USVI and the PR, with huge mass tourist industries. If the British Virgin Island went down the path of premium tourists industry the BVI would stick out from the Lesser Antilles. This would also bring higher growth to small and medium businesses as the government stated they wanted to do (http://bviplatinum.com/news.php?articleId=1401728121)as in this link.
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Why are you blaming NDP, VIP has done a great job bringing in Cruise ship before NDP. Cruise ships will never stop as long as Taxi drivers are Voters and demand the cruise ships being brought in. So all parties will never listen.
More cruise ships = mass tourism
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Mass Tourism = Low Revenue = loss of High Revenue