Luke Boyea, the owner of Hot97, says the government is making the same mistakes with Holiday Inn Express as it did with Argyle Airport simply because nobody wants to analyze the issue.
“We found justifications for that airport in Argyle; we made up justifications for it. Travelling is now more difficult than when we were at the crappy place in Arnos Vale. We had more flying options. The people came, oh, we need direct flights, and then a few months later, they came and said, well, you know, if you want to go to Atlanta, then Miami is our hub”.
However, Boyea says if travellers could get to Barbados, they could go straight to Atlanta, and if they could get to Trinidad, it’s straight to the UK.
“We made up justifications for spending all this money on an airport only to miss the bigger picture. Why didn’t we just put a few more dollars into LIAT? I used to say this on this programme. I said that LIAT is required as public transport; it needs to be subsidized; we needed it; we should have stopped complaining about having to put in money now and then”.
“We would have been better off, in my view, buying a-DASH -8 aircraft and just doing the route, Barbados, Trinidad back to St Vincent or even stop in Grenada and have the plane just constantly doing it. Just like a shuttle bus. Because once I could get to Barbados, once I could get to Trinidad, I could go anywhere. And we wouldn’t need all this nonsense out there that is underutilized and overbuilt”.
“We’re doing the same with the Holiday Inn Express. Just build it, build it and for some magical reason, people will stay there; nobody is going to stay there”.
Boyea stated that all the money that would be expended could have gone towards helping all those people we see around, the poverty-stricken ones, and all the unemployment we have. However, this is happening because everybody wants to focus on the new thing; they don’t want to do the analysis”.
“The government up to now don’t want to come to you and say, look, this is our analysis of why the Holiday Inn Express will work financially. Because they know if they show you the analysis, it doesn’t stand up. Same with the airport, people used to ask, show us the feasibility study, show the economic feasibility studies, Show us how this will work”.
“The bulk of our tourism will always be in the Grenadines. So now I’m going to fly into St Vincent and still have to catch a ferry or another plane to go down to the Grenadines. Why? Because nobody ever wants to look at the analysis because politically it’s not expedient”, Boyea said.
