Hanton: We need to innovate

Terry Hanton, Managing Director of Property Consulting Services believes Barbados needs to innovate.

He was speaking to the media at the launch of Beach View Villas & Suites in association with Altman Real Estate. Beach View Villas & Suites is an exclusive new development of 19 apartments which connects to the award winning Beach View Hotel.

Hanton stated, “We need to innovate and have better value for money. If you look at the Caribbean islands, their currency is not as valuable as ours, they are often more competitive; their labour rates, utility costs are lower, etcetera.

In terms of innovation, we need to think about other means of bringing people to the island more in line with additional amenities, whether it be theme parks, we need to be attractive to the market. Also Sports Tourism could be huge in Barbados. I was in Antigua and there are casinos closing down because there is not enough clientele to make them financially viable, so they have shut down, so casinos are not a necessity. If you think about it most of the cruise liners already have floating casinos and it is not a desired profit for long stay tourists.

Barbados is an expensive place to get to. It is remote from other places. The strong market is the UK and if you think about where the sterling is now its difficult for people to buy. It is quite challenging from that perspective but we have to be a top notch destination as we can’t compete with cheaper destinations, so we have to niche ourselves in the top end.”

According to him in terms of crime, “I don’t know that the upsurge in crime has had a significant impact. The bigger impact has been Brexit and the fall in the value of sterling, however there is potential for crime to have an impact in the future if it is not reigned in, but it has not had a significant impact to date.”

However, he also advised, “There is clearly an uneven playing field, in that hotels have to charge VAT and Airbnb clients often don’t charge VAT. Airbnb are not registered with the Tourism authorities it is not subject to the same stringent health and safety requirements that are rightly imposed on other developments. We have to even our playing field and across the Caribbean various territories have been signing deals with Airbnb to tax them and regulate them and Barbados needs to do the same.” (NB)