Should the VI purchase its own cruise ship?
A caller to the programme suggested that the Territory should consider buying its own cruise ship, which he opined would be a major boost to tourism.
Meanwhile, one of the hosts Natalio Wheatley said the idea of the Territory having its own cruise ship actually came to him in a vision, which he said was about getting people together in a big investment club and making the purchase.
He said the cruise ship could be a real carnival cruise line that sails around the Caribbean and making stops to the various countries’ national celebrations.
“And so it would take money to do that but what we are speaking about here is for me a real step up from where we are right now as opposed to just inviting people into our Territory and our country to package our product for us in the form of hotels, in the form of cruise ships in the form of whatever else. We take it upon ourselves to do it for ourselves.”
He said having a cruise ship would make VIslanders the business owners. “So we are not just collecting taxes as a Government nor not just having a few jobs. As we go forward and we are speaking about white paper and the relationship with the United Kingdom and about even ourselves evolving as a territory the next step for us as a people is to become more economically independent and we cannot have true political independence without economic independence".
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