St. Lucia Simply Beautiful

In this Caribbean diversity lie opportunities and challenges. Where else in the world does one find such an attractive target market for adventurous tourists who are looking for destination diversity? Now that the global centre of gravity of wealth has shifted from West to East, there are many tourists and potential tourists with large enough disposable incomes to travel to their destination of choice anywhere on the globe. Therein lie the opportunities. Tourism is an export in the sense that it earns foreign exchange for a given destination. As for any other export industry the important factors in order to develop and sustain the industry are quality, price, continuity of supply and timeliness of delivery. Many tourists have limited time for their tourist experience and need to get to and return from their destinations safely, reliably, in relative comfort and as hassle free as possible. When they arrive at the destination they expect to be safe and to benefit from quality accommodation, meals and attractions which are commensurate with the money that they have outlaid. In short, without high quality air transportation and services we are “dead in the water”. Therein lie the challenges in marketing the Caribbean as a tourism destination.

Edgar Cayce (1877-1945) founded the non-profit Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) in 1931, to explore spirituality, holistic health, intuition, dream interpretation, psychic development, reincarnation, and ancient mysteries. The mission of A.R.E. is to help people transform their lives for the better, through research, education, and application of core concepts found in the Edgar Cayce readings and kindred materials that seek to manifest the love of God and all people and promote the purposefulness of life, the oneness of God, the spiritual nature of humankind, and the connection of body, mind, and spirit.

If we think of the tourism sector, for example, the tourism marketing activity drives the sector because the more successful the marketing effort the greater the numbers of long stay and cruise visitors there are and the greater their total spend. We can think of tourism arrivals as the “big” wheel in an economic gearing system consisting of three wheels of differing size. The tourists spend money in hotels and tourism attractions, the “middle” wheel. Various services are provided to the tourists through other enterprises (e.g. restaurants, taxis, handicraft), the small “wheel”. When the big wheel turns one revolution, then the middle wheel turns several revolutions and similarly the small wheel turns several more depending on the gear ratios. So in the second and third wheels many jobs are created but the system is driven by the big marketing wheel. Similarly, for other sectors in the economy.

Whether inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs are involved in start-up, spin-out or scale-up enterprises, the major inhibitors to successful enterprise development and hence sustainable economic growth are (1) a quick response source of financial investment and (2) the shepherding process which mitigates the risk of business failure and protects the financial investment.

Very often we are told, especially among small island states, that they are at a disadvantage because they do not have any resources. May I remind you of Singapore which has grown into a very successful nation not withstanding its lack of natural resources. Like any other country it has people and more importantly it recognizes that “our people are our greatest asset and we must develop them to the fullest”. The foundation for all of their development strategies have been based on this tenet. Why not start with the youth.

When one is passionate about a topic, it pervades one’s existence and there is the tendency to talk about it all the time with the objective of getting something done about it. I am no exception when it comes to enterprise development.