Opposition Leader Godwin Friday has suggested that the government should give sailors temporary residence as a way of attracting more sailors to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
He said while the Grenadines is world-famous among sailors, the destination has lost much ground over the last 15 years.
Speaking during the Budget debate, he said the country must believe it can recover the lost ground and its leadership role in the yachting sector in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
Friday urged the government to think of innovative programs that can be used to attract yachts to the country and to get them to stay longer.
“Don’t treat them as somehow they’re suspicious people that you have to try and get rid of when the six weeks are up and the immigration permit or whatever it is expires — they have to go out of the country and come back and so forth,” he said, adding that when yachts leave, they might not return but may travel to another Caribbean island.
Friday suggested that yachts “of a certain net worth be granted temporary residence to stay in St. Vincent on their boat and they come here and they can use this as their base”.
“I could think of places like Wallilabou, Cumberland, Port Elizabeth, Mayreau, Union Island and so forth,” he said.
“That is a way to get them to think of us differently, to think of us not just as a place you stop but this is home as well.”
Adding that those yachts would use SVG for provisioning and meetups, the Opposition Leader told Parliament: “This is their home away from home but they live on their boats and these are people who are retired, have some income; they’re not coming here to take anything from anybody.”
He said the country would benefit from the spending that these yachties do, adding that for such a program to work there must be security in place.
He said in this way, the country would rid itself of “some of those vibes that you used to get when the government introduced and triple the fees on yachts or when you hear stories of yacht invasions that take place, people boarding yachts and robbing people”.
Last month, Godwin Friday told Parliament there had been a spate of yacht break-ins in Admiralty Bay, Bequia, resulting in bad publicity for SVG as a destination among yacht travelers.
Meanwhile, he also suggested that the government invests in building more marinas as those facilities attract boats.
“In Grenada, they have . . . must be nine, ten, 11,” he said.
CMC/
