by S Brian Samuel
Picture the scene: It’s cruise ship day in Grenada, and two giant ships are docked at the Cruise Port, a third at the Cargo Port, and a fourth is anchored offshore.
Including off-duty crew members, up to 20,000 sun- and fun-seeking visitors descend on the island, temporarily increasing its population by one-fifth. Onshore it’s a soup: thousands of tourists are strolling through town, looking for the best duty-free bargains, or just looking. Every shop, restaurant and bar is packed, the streets are so crowded you can barely move. Offshore, catamarans and speedboats are whizzing up and down, water taxis are ferrying tanned tourists to and from Grand Anse Beach, brimming sand-to-sea with deckchairs. Vendors are happy; shopkeepers are happy; restaurants are happy; taxi drivers are happy. And tourists are happy – a win-win, right? Wrong.
You know who aren’t happy? Grenada’s tourists. By whom I mean Grenada’s real tourists: the ones who spend real money. My brother and sister-in-law, Gerry and Pat, are Grenada’s archetypal tourist: they live in Wimbledon and should get gold medals, for the number of times they’ve visited Grenada. They love Grenada’s laid-back tranquility, the friendliness of its people, and most of all the absence of crowds. Except on cruise ship days; they abhor cruise ship days, when they flee from the overcrowded beach and hole up in their room. The old people (i.e. us!) have a term for this: cutting off your nose, to spite your face.
We are pissing off real tourists, those who spend in excess of US$1,000 per visit, to please masses of day-trippers who, according to the cruise ship industry’s own survey, spend a paltry US$45 per visit. Why? Because of numbers, and our politicians’ addiction to big ones. Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett loves to boast how Jamaica received 1.5 million cruise ship visitors in 2019; but he wasn’t pleased, when I asked him at a conference: Yes Minister, but how much do they spend? Ask the same question to any vendor at the Falmouth Cruise Terminal – you won’t be able to print the answer.
But this is what Caribbean tourism has become: quantity over quality; numbers over impact; size over sustainability. We, and I mean all of us: governments, investors, financiers and so-called experts like me; have been so caught up on numbers – numbers of hotel rooms, numbers of tourists, numbers of flights – that we have totally failed to see the bigger picture: that endless growth, in a finite and usually small island, is (a) short-sighted; (b) misguided; and (c) simply impossible.
Even after the lessons of the Covid pandemic should be clear for all to see, Grenada is continuing with this folly. The government is simultaneously pursuing two multi-billion dollar, Chinese-backed tourism projects: one at Levera, a pristine beach to the north of the island, home to the highly endangered Leatherback Turtle; and another at Mount Hartman, a pristine National Park and home to the highly endangered Grenada Dove. There are only two words that can describe these projects, with thanks to HRH Prince Charles: monstrous carbuncles.
As a Grenadian, it makes me proud when people tell me how beautiful my island is. And not just physical beauty, Grenada has a rich historical heritage, reflected in its iconic Georgian architecture, along with more recent touches that are inherently Grenadian. Not so these carbuncles: Chinese designed mega-hotels which have absolutely nothing in common with their host environment. A host environment that is rapidly being attacked by these same projects. At the beautiful Levera Beach, a swathe of land has been clear cut, and ugly living quarters constructed, for the expected influx of Chinese workers. Further down the coast a beautiful wetlands habitat, La Sagesse (Wisdom), has been utterly destroyed, clear-cut by another developer. And at Mount Hartman, over several years several mega-hotel developments have all stalled, leaving nothing behind but scars in the earth. Repeat: this is a National Park. These projects are the centrepieces of the government’s “tourism-led recovery” strategy.
Tourism-led recovery? In my opinion, tourism will be the last sector of the economy to fully recover – if ever. And it certainly won’t recover through the kinds of mass-market, bargain-basement tourism that the government is currently promoting. The average visitor to Grenada is: (a) older; (b) more affluent; and (c) more discerning than the normal tourist; they come to Grenada, precisely because it’s not a mass-market destination, and doesn’t have the kinds of abominations pictured above.
Haven’t we learned anything at all? Are we still trotting out these same old, failed strategies? That bigger equals better? Every person on the planet is gun-shy about getting on a plane, a shyness that will last for years – particularly among Grenada’s tourist demographic: middle-aged and above. In the post-Covid world (whenever that may be), air travel will become: (a) less competitive; (b) longer queues; and (c) more expensive. It’s not pleasant, spending an eight-hour overnight flight wearing a mask, especially when Southern Europe is just a short hop away (and Spanish beaches are just as nice as ours, believe me).
In addition to being unpleasant, travel will also become more expensive. With the certain failure of many of the world’s airlines, those left standing will be more able to dictate prices, as they used to in the bad old days before liberalization. In aviation, social distancing is expensive: who do you think will pay for that empty seat next to you? You will. Another factor is travel insurance: middle-aged tourists will think long and hard before travelling anywhere without cover, and in the post-Covid world, premiums will become a lot more expensive.
And in the midst of this global pandemonium, this is when we decide to promote mass-market tourism? Do the math: it doesn’t compute.
Not only doesn’t it compute, it’s not even doable. Grenada is a tiny island, 23 miles from stem to stern, there’s no capacity to absorb a billion-dollar project, let alone two. Yet our Prime Minister assures us: “The initial stages of work on the $300 million hotel project by Range Developments in St David and the over $1 billion Grenada National Resort Project in St Patrick are now underway.” Do these “initial stages of work” include anything more than destroying the previously pristine environment? In return for destroying our natural habitats, how many Grenadians have been employed on these billion-dollar projects? More to the point: are these the type of tourism development that Grenada needs?
All my life I’ve worked in finance, I’m the archetypal numbers nerd. I would love to see the feasibility studies for these projects! How many hotel rooms would a billion dollars build? Two billion? Three? How many new tourists would need to visit Grenada, paying what rate, to make a billion-dollar hotel profitable? How many Grenadians would it employ? We may not know the answer to the first two questions, but we certainly know the third: not many. Chinese businesses abroad have a proven record of hiring predominantly Chinese workers. The only locals hired on previous Chinese-funded projects in Grenada have been a handful of janitors and security guards. Where will we find the thousands of trained hotel staff to work in these Chinese mega-hotels? Don’t be silly: China.
In Grenada, you can’t get further from the airport than Levera Beach: via a long, potholed, narrow and very winding road. Are we going to build a new high-speed highway, to whisk these thousands of new visitors to the previously pristine beaches of Northern Grenada? Water, electricity, sewerage and solid waste disposal: Grenada can’t even provide sufficient infrastructure for its own citizens, how will we provide for these billion-dollar projects?
What is particularly depressing about these mega-projects, is the total lack of any effective environmental oversight. My good friend the irrepressible Dr Hazel DaBreo is leading the charge to get some answers on the La Sagesse debacle, where the developers ignored their own Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and clear-cut hundreds of acres of mangroves, in one of Grenada’s most diverse natural habitats. The Chinese projects do not even have this minimal level of environmental screening – they just move in with the bulldozers.
Covid-19 has been a harsh lesson in reality: that our over-reliance on a fickle industry like tourism is a double-edged sword. And to use the vernacular: we just get a hard lash, with the backside of the machete! But do we learn? Evidently not, because in response to the pandemic that has exposed the fragility of tourism, what do we do? Rely on tourism even more! Isn’t it clear to any rational person, that we need a change of direction?
Naturally, tourism must play a central role in the regeneration of the Grenadian economy, but the crucial question is: What kind of tourism? You can’t fit square pegs into round holes; a country’s tourism strategy has to gel with its natural and human attributes. There are 2 distinct types of destination: mass-market tourism; and niche tourism; and Grenada sits squarely in the niche category. Our biggest hotel only has about 250 rooms, tiny by mass-market standards. During a recession, it is often the smaller, more upmarket hotels that are better able to weather the storm; as their clientele tends to be more well-heeled than the mass-market segment.
My contention is simple: These are the wrong hotels, for the wrong market, at the wrong time, on the wrong island. Apart from destroying the environment, bad design, and wrong locations; what else do these mega-projects all have in common? Their financing. None of them is backed by the traditional deep-pocketed “foreign investor”: a single entity or consortium that put their money where their mouth is and invests millions to make their dreams a reality. All these projects are predicated on the sale of one thing: Grenadian passports.
But that’s another story – altogether!
Watch out for Part 2 – Island for Sale: Grenada
Your assessment is bang-on!!! The mass-market mega-hotels does not work for Grenada’s natural tourism assets, and small size. Additionally, in the age of COVID, no one in their right mind is going to pack themselves into mass-market hotels. Firstly, the environmental impact will be too great. Going forward, health and safety will be the paramount consideration for travel & leisure decision-making. In Canada, for example, people are renovating their homes..pools, etc, and doing the staycations. Furthermore, the hard data is clearly showing that the cheap mass-market resort-type hotels are a thing of the past. i.e. the rise of Airbnb.
Even Cuba gets it, and way before COVID, Cuba was the #1 Airbnb experience-based vacation destination in the Caribbean. This model decentralizes the tourist dollar out of the hands of the Chinese and Keith Mitchell and flows it right through to the broader economy. Everyone participates! Therefore, Grenada’s tourism future is based on a high-end digital and decentralized experienced-based platform, villa based market which is inclusive to the broader economy and society.
Great article and so true about Chinese methods and impact!
We love Grenada for what it is, we especially love the fact that it is the original Spice Island and it’s pirate ahistory nd Georgian architecture.
We would absolutely love to come and live on Grenada and we understand and believe in the saying “when in Rome do like the Romans do”
A stop needs to be put against the Chinese development, it will kill the planet!
Keith Mitchell would sell Grenada to China… he reminds me of a man who took a hand full of silver to betray a friend. Oh yes, please remember that China is against Christians. One time, not so many years ago, Grenada was unspoiled but now it is like any other island foreign money has bought and will ruin very soon. Government official: look upon your work and what you have done to Grenada. Ancestors would curse you.
Thanks for this
We have been to Grenada 17 times. Staying in the Flamboyant (until it was closed) and then in apartments. We have seen the beach turn from a peaceful place with cows wandering around, to a part-developed high-end all-inclusive building site. It was our big treat for the year, every year. We ate and drunk out every night, everywhere from the chateau (when it was little more than a shack on the roundabout), to Boulangerie, to Patricks, to some of the higher end restaurants. We didn’t come last year, we are not coming this year, and I doubt we will be back, ever. Grenada will get lots of well-heeled tourists, but Grenada won’t get us, or people like us, that loved the island, and the people for what they are. It is spoiled.
$ 45 per person x 20,000 people thats a lot of scratch to turn away.
All the big money old money in grenada did nothing, we need new developers lively up the dead place .
I am soooo sad to see how Keith Mitchell I sold out this beautiful Island, all in the name of the almighty dollar, Keith one day you will have to answer to a higher power,
It is so sad. Look how Jamaica has become. They basically have no say. The Chinese come and they bring their workers. So the peoplewho live there and vote the Government in end up with nothing. When will one of you Governmemts in the Caribbean grow some balls and stick up for the rights of their people. Fix the roads and employ are young people. Be creative not just greedy.
An excellent well thought out piece mirroring just about every concern I have.
There seems to be a bizarre thought process going on probably instigated by the monolith that is the Chinese Government without any real knowledge of the strengths weaknesses, or even the scale of our little Island.
It was not that long ago I was hearing rumors that there was a plan to create a railway along the South of the Island. If this was true, and I think it was, then a) what untold damage would it have done to the landscape and communities, but who really would have used it?
We have been visitng Grenada for the past 30 years, we are now in our 70’s and we stay at a hotel on Grand Anse and we are not, repeat not, all inclusive guests. We have been able to secure the services of a local taxi driver who has become a friend and has introducted us to things to do and places to visit. On every visit we do an Around the Island Rum Shack Tour, spend a day on Hog Island, and, although we are stayin on Grand Anse we spend at least one day per trip at La Sagesse. On our trip in January 2020 we were very disappointed to see the destruction of the mangroves at La Sagesse and can only imagine what wild life has been destroyed during this process. We have also seen the ‘monstrous carbuncle’ which is Silver Sands which does not have the appearance of a welcoming, friendly Grenadian hotl. We have spoken to guests who were stayin at Silver Sands and they informed us that it has no atmosphere whatsoever and, when visiting yachts arrive, there are areas of the hotel which are reserved specifically for the passengers of those yachts and are off limits to hotel guests.
We live in Bermuda and can confirm from experience that cruise ship passengers bring very little to the local economy. They may buy a t shirt or a cheap souvenir but the spend no money in our bars or restaurants and simply go back on board to eat because it is included in their cruise fare.
The Grenada Government are being very short sighted in relying upon being able to attract tourists to billion dollar hotels. Covid is going to be around for a while and travel is not going to be what we are used to. We are really hoping we will be able to visit Grenada in January 2021 but at the moment we are not happy with having to travel through the US (which we will have to do to fly to Grenada) and I’m sure we are not the only ones. Those multi million dollar hotels could be destined to sit empty for the foreseeable future.