Michelle Loubon

Es­ther By­er Suck­oo, the Min­is­ter of Labour in Bar­ba­dos, says her coun­try does not have casi­nos for the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion, on­ly ap­proved leg­is­la­tion on cruise ships. "It is not for Bar­ba­di­ans, but for vis­i­tors to stay longer," Suck­oo said.

"They would walk about town and see more at­trac­tions. Tourism is the main­stay of the econ­o­my. The ven­dors on the beach­es might get sales. We are try­ing just about every­thing we can. We are open­ing it af­ter 7 pm. Cruise ship busi­ness would cre­ate more op­por­tu­ni­ties for tour op­er­a­tors. You can have hun­dreds of peo­ple."?

Suck­oo and Cor­nelius de Wee­v­er, St Maarten's Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Health, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Labour, were guests of House Speak­er Wade Mark. They at­tend­ed the de­bate on reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion for casi­nos and the in­crease in tax­es for cer­tain class­es of mo­torists–the Pro­vi­sion­al Col­lec­tion of Tax­es Or­der 2012. It took place in the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber at Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Oc­to­ber 19.

Op­po­si­tion MPs who made con­tri­bu­tions in­clud­ed Port-of-Spain South MP Mar­lene Mac Don­ald, Laven­tille West MP Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West MP Pa­tri­cia Mac In­tosh. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai promised to get a han­dle on casi­nos which he felt would al­so con­tribute im­mense­ly to the tourism in­dus­try. The Op­po­si­tion Leader said casi­nos had to be prop­er­ly reg­u­lat­ed. The bill was passed by 23 votes "for" and "sev­en"?against with two ab­sten­tions.

Suck­oo said there was dis­cus­sion and di­a­logue about whether the move was to­wards casi­no gam­bling. She felt al­though there were "eco­nom­ic ad­van­tages," gov­ern­ment had to gauge the mood of the pop­u­la­tion. "You have to go to the peo­ple and sense their mood.

Every­one is con­cerned about the neg­a­tive im­pact it could have on so­ci­ety. The move to pass leg­is­la­tion on cruise ships did raise the is­sue about casi­no gam­bling. You have to go to the peo­ple of the coun­try and de­ter­mine what the peo­ple want. When it comes to casi­no gam­bling, we would have to make the de­ci­sion."

The tourism fac­tor

Ze­ro­ing on the tourism in­dus­try, Suck­oo felt the Caribbean should mar­ket it­self as a sin­gle des­ti­na­tion-es­pe­cial­ly if they in­tend­ed to tar­get cruise ships. It did not de­tract from the fact each is­land had its unique at­trac­tions rang­ing from ar­chi­tec­ture, shop­ping, nightlife, cui­sine, flo­ra and fau­na.

Suck­oo iden­ti­fied the Mediter­ranean as a ma­jor com­peti­tor. In­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors can't re­sist Flo­rence which boasts sites like Foun­tain of Nep­tune in the Pi­az­za del­la Sig­no­ria, the domed cathe­dral known as the Duo­mo and the Ponte Vec­chio, a bridge across the Arno Riv­er. Its most strik­ing fea­ture is the mul­ti­tude of shops built up­on its edges.

Suck­oo added, "Some of the cruise lines are go­ing to the Mediter­ranean. We are try­ing to get more of that busi­ness and re­de­vel­op­ing our ports. We are in­tro­duc­ing more at­trac­tions on the cruise ships. There is a lot of com­pe­ti­tion from the big­ger coun­tries with stronger economies. They are at­tract­ing the busi­ness."

Bar­ba­dos serves up the "soup bowl" at Bathshe­ba and its fa­mous Har­ri­son Caves. She felt the is­lands should move to­ward cre­at­ing an at­trac­tive re­gion­al pack­age. "When tourists come, they would have sev­er­al stops to make. That's one of the ways it can be de­vel­oped. It is not enough for Bar­ba­dos to be do­ing some­thing."

Each is­land has its unique at­trac­tions rang­ing from beach­es, her­itage sites to cui­sine. Com­ment­ing on the de­bate in which Tourism Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz iden­ti­fied St Maarten as hav­ing flour­ished via the casi­no in­dus­try, Wee­v­er said, "It was a priv­i­lege to be here and lis­ten to the ref­er­ences to St Maarten.

"We agree casi­nos are an in­stru­men­tal part of our de­vel­op­ment. The peo­ple of T&T have to make that de­ci­sion about casi­nos them­selves."??