Casinos in Port Get Nod - The Advocate - April 24, 2010

LEGISLATION is on the way that will give cruise ships the green light to operate their casinos while docked in this country’s port.

Word of this came from Prime Minister David Thompson yesterday morning, moments after he took a tour of the multimillion dollar Limegrove Lifestyle Centre situated in Holetown, St. James. According to the Prime Minister, while Government will be going to Parliament to allow the cruiseship passengers to have access to the casinos while in port here, that move will have absolutely no impact on locals.

"We have to be realistic; it doesn’t affect Barbadians because we can’t go into the port and use the casinos and we have our position already in relation to casino gambling," he contended.

The Prime Minister explained that Government has recently agreed to establish a cruise tourism taskforce – a collaboration between the Ministries of Tourism and International Transport – which has been charged with finding a way to get more cruise passengers to our shores and encouraging them to stay longer. Thompson said that cruise operators have indicated that one of the reasons they leave Barbados early, is because they have their own entertainment on board, particularly casinos, which they are not able to operate here and would be losing out in that regard if they stayed longer.

"...We need to look at our product development and we need to look at where we want to go in terms of cruise tourism, what we are competing with. Some of the things we have said we may need to agree to include allowing the cruise ships to open their casinos in port so that they would stay longer in Barbados".

"We want the ships in port longer and obviously we have talked to the stakeholders about the potential of them opening their shops as well. We have to do some things to get the ships to stay longer and we also have to make sure that Barbadians who have tourism investments and activities that would attract tourists off of cruise ships will benefit from it," he said.

Thompson noted that Barbados has a lot to offer cruise passengers outside of Bridgetown, but at present it is difficult for them to access these experiences because of the short stay in port. He noted that once the ships remain docked longer, facilities being offered at the Limegrove Lifestyle Centre, for example, will be an added attraction for those passengers.

"...Nobody is going to bypass it and it gives our taxi drivers the opportunity to have a much wider variety of places where they can take them. But beyond that, obviously Barbados is viewed as a destination of high quality ... so it is like owning a Cartier watch from Diamonds International or [a] MontBlanc pen," he said. (JRT)