The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A former Association of Bahamas Marinas (AB) president yesterday warned Caribbean rivals are gaining a competitive advantage over The Bahamas with "new and innovative" legislation.

Peter Maury, who operatesBay Street Marina, told Tribune Business that the likes of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) have adopted procedures that allow yachters to receive charter licences in 24 hours and have lower fees that can entice visitors to their shores.

He said: “I think the Caribbean is our biggest competitor and they're growing at a faster rate than The Bahamas due to some of the new and innovative legislation.

“The newest one is BVI. I mean, BVI's opened up to the yachting industry and looking at a 24-hour turnaround as far as getting registered, charter licence and taking guests throughout their country, which isn't as vast as ours but, at the same time, it's relatively low fees.

“The fuel is cheaper, resources are cheaper, groceries and stuff like that. So, when people are shopping on vacations, they want bang for their buck. They don't want to waste it in a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy and messing around on portals and everything else," Mr Maury added.

“So I think BVI recognise that and get the customer going and keep them happy, and then they'll return. I mean, we need to do the same thing. We're kind of going backwards in that respect.”

Mr Maury added that government should give considerations to improving the ease of doing business, and said the Business Licence process can be extremely time consuming.

He said: “We need to seriously consider legislative changes and ease of business. We have a lot of things that we're faced with as businesses in this country right now that are very time consuming, and especially this month, and it's a waste of valuable time.

“The majority of businesses aren’t accounting firms. We’re operators, so we need to make that easier so that we can go to the business of doing business and obviously government benefits from that.”

Mr Maury said the taxes that have been applied to the boating industry are "ridiculous" as they came with no benefits such as improved navigational aids. He said the increased fees have discouraged visitors from staying for an extended period of time.

He said: “As a Bahamian, I understand the ridiculous price increase we got nothing for it. We went up 1,000 percent but there's no navigational aid, nothing got better so it seems like a crazy waste of money.

“The same thing could be said in the yacht industry. The Government went and put in 10 percent VAT, which is really a tax because you can't claim any throughputs. So, through consumerism, they don't even benefit. It makes no sense.

“They spend money in the country, and there's absolutely no benefit to it, which is exactly the opposite of what VAT is supposed to do. So, in that respect, I think we've made a huge mistake because we've encouraged folks to not to stay as long and to come over with their own resources as far as inventory and whatever else.”

Mr Maury added that he has seen a decrease in the amount of yachts on Family Islands, while policymakers have chosen to not include industry players in their decisions.

He said: “We've seen shorter stays and less consumer products. I mean that's exactly the opposite of GDP growth. So the economics of it, although in the think-tank they may have thought that this would work, but it's worked the exact opposite and encouraged people to not stay as long

“We definitely noticed a difference in it. Even some of the distributors. We've had people come into the marina and say 'why aren't you guys using our services any more?

“I was just in Harbour Island and they probably had, between three major marinas, they probably had a total of 18 boats. It was kind of sad to see it this time of the year, but you know, I'm not the one that makes those decisions and decision makers aren't listening to the industry, so I guess we're kind of screwed.”