Dear editor,

It is clear that Sir Lester Bird gets it. Having been a longstanding minister of tourism during the administration of his father, Sir Vere Bird Sr, he is calling for Antigua to go the way of high end tourism with four-star or five-star hotels. I believe it’s the only way to go.

Some of the very low level products end up reducing the quality of the tourism product, making it less attractive, without adding any worthwhile revenue. That is true for any Caribbean island, not just Antigua and Barbuda. What is also clear is that Prime Minister Gaston Browne does not get it.

Where I differ from Sir Lester is the idea that government should own hotels and give out management contracts to run them. That has not worked in the past and there is little or no reason to suggest it would work now or in the future.

Such ownership/management contract arrangements are fraught with conflicts. The important aspect of maintaining and upgrading the property is always lost under government ownership. Both parties always feel it is the responsibility of the other, while the property falls into decay.

In the case of Antigua, the prospect of success is made worse, because Browne’s approach to negotiation is that of an aggressive bully and ruffian who threatens to hold something over the head of the other party, if they do not comply with his demands.

You have the stark example of the case with Sandals Antigua where he adopts his usually vindictive approach by unilaterally withdrawing a legally binding concession agreement signed by a previous government, when he wasn’t getting his way.

To try to pretty up his wrongs, after realising that he was scaring off investors, Browne then resorted to political claims. All he achieved was to eliminate a concession agreement which had worked very well for Antigua and its people for many years.

I hope that Sir Lester, as a former prime minister himself and as a senior minister in the current government, would help to show Browne the error of his ways. He needs to see that his approach to negotiating could only work with entities or persons who are beholden to Antigua and to him, and not with independent businesses like Sandals.

Sir Lester’s vision of the kind of tourism that Antigua needs is spot on. Browne has no vision or plan on how to develop his country’s number one industry which is now representing 75 per cent of the island’s gross domestic product.

He is taking directions, assuming it’s not his own brainless ideas, from small-minded people who themselves are extremely limited in their ability to understand tourism, much less to advise on its development.

Their ultra nationalistic approach is the worst form of advice that a leader can take but Browne knows no better.

Afterall, Browne seems quite happy and satisfied that he himself has become personally wealthy since taking office. He need not worry about the fate of other Antiguans.

Justine Beresford