Crafts Alive Vendors anxious about rent; want visible signage for tourists
One vendor, who chose to remain anonymous, sang a grim tune that didn’t quite coincide with the rhythm of ‘Jingle Bells’. “They come in sometimes but they are not buying. I believe that some of them don’t really know where Crafts Alive [Village] is, so instead of coming this way, they go [the opposite direction] into town.”
“It’s really bad, nothing going on… very slow,” she continued. The vendor, who indicated that she came out quite early today on Christmas Eve, was slightly disappointed that she was only receiving her first sale of the day at noon. “This is my first customer for the day, and there are two ships in… you’re not making any money,” she said.
She pointed out that many of the stalls remained closed, an indication to her that persons were not making sales even when ships were docked. “If you notice, some of them are closed, they don’t worry to come out… some people come and sell $20 [worth of merchandise], some might not sell [a dollar’s worth],” the vendor observed.
Another of the vendors, Irvinia, agreed that sales have definitely been a bit slow since she moved over from tent city just two weeks ago but she expressed that she was being patient and was hopeful that things would pick up once the new year started. “A few of [the tourists] normally come in… sometimes we get a few people, sometimes not… according to the ship that is outside on the dock, sometimes you do get a flow of people coming in…”
“Most of them are heading to the beaches,” she said as one tourist some distance away coincidently pointed outward saying that she wasn’t seeing a sign for the beach.
Signs on Christmas vacation?
The vendor felt there was a need to have signs indicating the direction of the Village to the tourists as they came of the ships at the dock.
Strangely enough, the signs demarcating the name of the Village were also not visible at the location. One vendor claimed that these were removed during the construction period but haven’t been replaced since, some four weeks after the Village had re-opened for sales for most of the vendors.
Apart from the signs, the vendor was of the opinion that there needed to be some sort of activity going on at the village, perhaps in similar vein to the welcoming crew at the cruise ship pier, she offered.
What will our rent be like?
New vendors that arrived from the former tent city and those who had now been granted booths to sell out of the revamped Crafts Alive Village expressed anxiety about what their rents would look like.
Vendors spoken to by this news site related that they were told this information would not be forthcoming until January 2013 for the vendors that were now selling at the Village for the first time. It was a source of particular anxiety for quite a few of them that this would be left unresolved for such a long period.
Wheelchair-friendly walkways; no ramps for booths
One additional observation made by yet another vendor was the issue of wheel-chair friendly units for the vendors as each vendor was noticeably without access ramps to their stores.
Minister for Communications and Works Hon. Mark H. Vanterpool had indicated that he was working towards having walkways around Road Town becoming wheelchair-friendly; someone it seems, forgot to give the contractor(s) at the Village the memo.
Each of the units are quite colourful and attractively painted with bright colours, but some vendors complained that even though they were grateful for all of this, the stairs were impractical for persons that made up a section of their clientele.
Vendors though, despite expressing their disappointment at the slow rate of sales, were optimistic yet again for a positive turn when the new year comes around.
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14 Responses to “Crafts Alive Vendors anxious about rent; want visible signage for tourists ”
If you had the goods people want to buy, you would be doing as well as could be expected. For heaven's sake STOP complaining! Use your heads and stop selling all the same old, same old that everyone else is selling! Try being a little original for a change! And again ~ STOP COMPLAINING!
Nobody did a darned thing for my wife ~ and I don't hear her complaining. Strupes!