Christie
Touts Cable Beach
22/06/2004
Prime Minister Perry Christie has admitted that he is
not minded to encourage Cable Beach to target mid-market tourists, as is the
wish of Kerzner International executives.
Kerzner officials have made it clear in recent weeks
that while they are not against competition, Atlantis and Ocean Club, not Cable
Beach, should target high-spending visitors.
“As prime minister, I have indicated to the Kerzner family and to its board of directors that my government values their investment to date,” Mr. Christie told the Journal recently. “They know, the Kerzners, that we have a problem with Cable Beach. They know that there has to be radical improvement to the product of Cable Beach.”
Kerzner CEO Butch Kerzner has said that improving
Cable Beach would be good for the destination, but he has also said that any
development for that area should not directly compete with Paradise Island.
Mr. Christie said, however, he and his government
would find it difficult to turn down any investment for Cable Beach that would
be five-star quality.
“We live in a country where the challenge for the
government, if we are to listen to advice, is how do we go about when an
investor buys a property and decides with his money that he wants to spend $5
million, how do we tell him to spend 2? How do we do that? That is the
difficulty that we face,” he said.
Mr. Christie said he would like to see a five-start
development on Cable Beach to complement the five-star Paradise Island
development and the planned upgrades to the Nassau International Airport, which
will also make it a five-star facility.
“That is what I saw, being able to facilitate this
significant increase in tourism to New Providence,” the prime minister said.
He said he will deal more intimately with Kerzner’s
concerns at it relates to “destructive” competition after he addresses other
more pressing issues.
Mr. Christie said he is focused on selling the
Radisson Cable Beach Resort and securing $10 million for the Treasury.
“Until such time, therefore, as I am informed that
there is an agreement to buy the hotels on Cable Beach, I need not focus on
anything other than the sale of the Radisson,” he said.
The
prime minister also said that the owner of the Wyndham Nassau Resort and
Crystal Palace Casino Phil Ruffin has not agreed to sell his property, so the
government is a good distance away from addressing the debate evolving over
competition.
“If in the process we are able to cause there to be a
wonderful development at Cable Beach, we would cross the bridge that has been
put in my way, when we come to that, if we have to,” he told the Journal.
Mr. Kerzner said in a release last week that, “If
done correctly, redevelopment will expand the size of the pie rather than us
all fighting for the same slice of the pie. It is the difference between
constructive as opposed to destructive competition. Where overbuilding
has taken place in one market segment the result has been failure.”