Premier and Minister for Tourism Andrew Fahie has said that his government could have missed out on more than $10 million in revenue and over 47 potential calls to the territory, if a decision was not quickly made to welcome back cruise vessels to the BVI.
The premier made the statement during a recent press conference while responding to questions posed by the media.
He was defending his government’s decision to act briskly on an agreement with the cruise industry, which he said was vital to reviving tourism in the territory.
The premier said the decision was one that found a balance between the lives and livelihood of residents.
“So the question was how do we come up with measures that won’t compromise the safety of our people and at the same time would not have us to be one of the territories that lose the cruise ship industry because the Cyril B Romney Tortola Pier Park was developed and constructed through loan funding and it was predicated on cruise tourism,” he stated
He added, “So if cruise tourism is not happening at the time, it creates some financial issues, but we know that we cannot just seek finances now, we have to balance lives and livelihoods so we had to come up with a methodology through advice from our health team and our technical experts in other areas on how we can do this.”
Would have missed out on next season also
The premier warned that if a decision was not made with haste, the BVI would have not only missed out on this cruise season, but also the 2022 cruise season.
He said, “After discussions and might I add many hours and days of discussions although we didn’t have too much of a long time to solve this problem, because cruise ships, they make their schedule way in advance and if we miss this season in terms of this year by not solving it, we would’ve automatically missed the scheduling of the cruise ship for next season and we would have seen and realised over probably $10 million worth of revenue coming to the ports that would’ve been lost.
“And that is a very conservative figure that the government of the Virgin Islands would have had to pick up the tab in terms of central government. The issue with that is you know our sectors of governments everywhere in the world are down because COVID-19 has taken a toll on most governments and most governments have gone into deficit spending,” he further stated.
Cruise ships could start berthing to the territory in under 2-weeks
Premier Fahie also revealed that calls to the territory from cruise ships could resume in just under 2 weeks, and said there were approximately 47 scheduled calls which is expected to increase after signing the agreement.
“All in all we have seen since we have done this, we have seen about 47 calls, we had more than that but were losing them as time come until we got the measures adjusted…we actually went down to less than 47 but more and more have come back on the schedule. Cruise ships, you have to make sure that you get your part of that pie early because a cruise ship is not something that you can stick out your finger when it’s passing and say stop in the BVI. You have to make sure that you register your interest early so that you can get on the schedule and make sure in this COVID-19 era that we do so in such a way that we don’t compromise the health of the people as much as possible,” he explained.
Earlier during that press conference, Premier Fahie revealed that Cabinet decided “to remove the requirement for rapid testing, for fully vaccinated cruise ship passengers and crew visiting the territory for less than 24 hours subject to enhanced COVID-19 protocols, including passenger bubbles and enhanced COVID-19 monitoring and enforcement.”
He said that provisions were made for those passengers wanting to travel outside of the bubble, who must undergo a rapid antigen test before being permitted to leave the bubble.