Sea link

GOVERNMENT will shortly commence the development of water taxi and ferry services, which will link the north, the west and south coasts of this island by sea.

This was revealed by Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Kerrie Symmonds, who delivered an address at a ceremony held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the maiden voyage of the Freewinds Cruise Ship to Barbados, at the Bridgetown Port on Saturday night.

While not going into details on the ferry service, Minister Symmonds, while thanking the Freewinds team for choosing Barbados over the past three decades, outlined some of the plans on the cards for the new Barbados Labour Party (BLP) government, and encouraged passengers to take a second look at what Barbados has to offer, particularly Speightstown to the north of the island.

“Speightstown is slated to become a heritage and artistic and culinary centre for Barbados. In my own constituency in Holetown, I invite you within the coming months to watch Holetown evolve into a major tourism and entertainment district. In similar fashion on the south coast of this island, a refreshed entertainment district will be found in St. Lawrence, with Oistins being developed as the epicentre of the fishing industry and related services.”

He said that as far as cruise tourism is concerned, the main aim is to actively promote the development of Barbados as the homeport of choice for cruise ships in the southern and eastern Caribbean. “And to establish positive links with hotels, agriculture, industry and other sectors on this island so that the tourism industry will now be at the centre of spearheading a holistic development programme for this island.”

“We also envisage a more in-depth development of the community element in order to collaborate skills development with community-based businesses and to refine their product and provide a platform for the promotion of their offerings. In this regard it is our intention also to continue to support the development of our human resources and to forget strategic alliances and partnerships for sales and distribution of our variety of products to the cruise industry.

“In other words, we have a perspective of developing a holistic and immersive approach to the future development of tourism.”

He said there is a very defined and targeted programme of work before government where the optimisation of cruise tourism is concerned.

Symmonds also stressed that the Government of Barbados is focused on the development of the sector, highlighting the creation of a new ministry of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy.

“We are now proposing to effectively harness the wealth of coastal Barbados, harness the marine resources that we possess, in order to deepen the integration of these resources more successfully into the tourism product.”

The Tourism Minister stated that as outlined in its manifesto, the BLP government has recognised that the tourism and hospitality sector is currently the biggest contributor to the creation of jobs and the earning of foreign exchange for the Barbados economy.

“We believe that Barbados is to realise the optimal benefit s of the sector, we must broaden our understanding, of and to our approach to tourism and hospitality in order to embrace the idea of the visitor economy in the fullest and broadest possible way.”

“This encompasses broader economic activity including sports competitions, exhibitions as well as the development of education and health tourism, and further targeting development of specific niches which can enhance and refresh our tourism product.” (JH)