The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sustainable Development has cancelled the six remaining public meetings on a planned national tourism policy, replacing them with “target focus group sessions” that have not yet been scheduled. The government announced the cancellations in a press release on April 23, two weeks after it had delayed the remaining public meetings.
“The public meetings were only attracting a few people,” Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley told the Beacon.
He also noted that the consultation process is not yet complete, explaining, “We will use focus groups to get more targeted feedback.”
He did not respond to the Beacon’s query on attendance numbers at the public meetings.
Tourism policy and plan
The importance of public consultations was a major theme during the first VI Tourism Summit, which was held in January at Peter Island Resort.
The summit, along with various consultations and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’ regional sustainable tourism policy, is to inform a national tourism policy that is expected to be completed by June, according to government.
That policy, in turn, will then aid the development of the territory’s first national tourism plan since the 1990s, which the premier has promised will be completed around October after more than a decade of delays.
Public meetings
From March 4 through April 17, eight public meetings were held across the territory, according to schedules published on the government’s Facebook page.
A revised meeting schedule published on April 11 showed six remaining public meetings between April 23 and May 8. But on April 23, government announced the cancellation of the meeting in Road Town that day and all the remaining meetings.
The government has yet to announce the details of the “target focus group sessions” it says it plans to facilitate.
‘Confident’
BVI Yachting, Hotel and Tourism Association Interim Director Sharon Flax-Brutus was optimistic about the move.
“While the cancellation of the remaining public meetings may be disappointing to some, I remain confident in the consultation process,” Ms. Flax-Brutus told the Beacon. “The planned focus groups will allow for more targeted and in-depth engagement with key stakeholders, which I believe will ultimately strengthen the tourism development policy.”
She added that she hopes that such sessions “will engage a wide sector of our communities on all islands and not only [focus] on the tourism and hospitality industry but on the other private and public sectors that interact and are affected, whether positively or negatively, by tourism.”
Past promises
A national tourism plan has been a longstanding promise across successive government administrations.
In 2011, the National Democratic Party came to power promising to replace an outdated tourism strategy adopted in the mid-1990s.
Until his retirement in 2019, then-Premier Dr. Orlando Smith continued to push the idea, which was also included in the Recovery to Development Plan that government published shortly after Hurricane Irma devastated the territory.
“The first step to revisioning and repositioning the tourism industry for the future is the development of a national tourism strategy in 2018,” the plan stated.
After that, however, multiple efforts to create the strategy stalled.
Consultations
In January 2024, Mr. Wheatley said in the House of Assembly that “consultations” had begun, and he expected the plan to be completed in the fourth quarter of that year.
At the time, he didn’t say who took part in the consultations, but government Communications Director Karia Christopher told the Beacon they were held during policy meetings with the OECS, which was working on a regional tourism policy.
“During the OECS policy meetings, over 70 sector-based businesses, government ministries and departments [expressed] a wide range of views, ideas, recommendations, and suggestions which are currently being collated,” Ms. Christopher stated at the time.
The OECS Common Sustainable Tourism Policy 2025- 2035, which was completed in November and made public on Tuesday, outlines strategies for member states to promote sustainable tourism development economically, culturally and environmentally.
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