Caribbean Tourism Industry decision makers to debate investment opportunities at hotel & tourism investment conference

Some of the Caribbean tourism industry’s top decision makers will share their perspectives on investment opportunities in the region at the 16th Annual Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Conference (CHTIC), which gets underway here in earnest tomorrow with an official opening ceremony.

Four members of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)’s Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism – the highest decision making body of the region’s tourism development agency – will help set the stage for discussion on challenges facing the sector, as well as the potential for development.

The CTO chairman, Hon Ricky Skerritt, who is also the minister of tourism and international transport for St. Kitts and Nevis, will be part of a panel discussing the Caribbean on the world tourism stage. The presenters, including a corporate finance expert and a tourism researcher, will seek to provide tools and vital data to help frame the discussion during the conference.

They will also identify opportunities for tourism development in the Caribbean.

The 90-minute session dubbed, Setting the Scene: Challenges, Potential and Opportunities – The Caribbean on the World Tourism Stage, will be followed almost immediately by a session on public and private sector partnerships. This session will feature Hon. Karine Roy-Camille, the president of the Martinique Tourism Authority; Hon. John Maginley, Antigua & Barbuda’s minister of tourism and civil aviation; and Hon. Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, the minister of tourism and civil aviation of The Bahamas.

They will share their vision of investment opportunities in the region and the policies that are required to encourage expansion.

Both sessions will take place on Wednesday April 25 and are among the highlights of the 24- to 26 April conference, which is being held organized by the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association (CHTA) and the CTO.

by RTC Director

Venezuela denies rumors Chavez died in Cuba

Officials in President Hugo Chavez’s government denied rumors that the leftist leader may have died while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba six months ahead of an election in South America’s top oil exporter.

In the nine days since he left for Havana to have two final radiation sessions for an undisclosed cancer, Chavez has only addressed Venezuelans by short messages on Twitter to cheer supporters and hail the advances of his socialist “revolution.”

His unusually long silence – during previous trips to Cuba the verbose Chavez has made phone calls to state television – has stirred speculation about his health and doubts over his condition as he campaigns for re-election in an October 7 vote.

In the past, Havana published pictures and video of him meeting his mentor, former Cuba leader Fidel Castro. There have been no images released from this visit, so far.

Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles leapt to the attack and complained that Chavez was running the country remotely by Twitter from a hospital on the communist-led Caribbean island.

Chavez’s political ally and president of the National Assembly legislature Diosdado Cabello dismissed the rumors in a tweet: “The truth is that these embittered people don’t learn. They’ve been saying for days that the Comandante died.”

“The only thing that is lifeless here is that loser,” Cabello said, referring to Capriles, the opposition’s best hope for defeating Chavez and ending his 13 years in power.

Cabello said on Sunday that the president was recovering and would return this week to Venezuela, where he is expected to sign a new labor law that shortens the work week and extends workers’ benefits and is due to go into effect on May 1.

Even opposition journalist Nelson Bocaranda, who has often broken news on Chavez’s treatment in the absence of official details from the government, helped to cast doubt on the rumors.

Bocaranda tweeted that the 57-year-old leader watched the Barcelona-Real Madrid soccer game on Saturday with his daughters in Havana.

Venezuelan government officials insist Chavez is fully in touch and capable of governing the country from Cuba.

Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza said on Twitter that he and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro worked with Chavez on Sunday and the president approved various projects.

‘GOVERNING BY TWITTER’

Capriles, a youthful state governor who is the opposition’s “unity candidate” to face Chavez, sharply criticized the all-dominant leader for not doing his job properly.

“Governing by Twitter, approving laws by Twitter without consulting anybody, is an insult to our people. The country’s problems cannot be resolved by Twitter,” Capriles said.

Before leaving for Cuba on April 14, Chavez acknowledged that radiation therapy was physically tiring and he skipped the Summit of the Americas in Colombia that weekend on the advice of his doctors.

Chavez’s opponents have criticized him for keeping the country in the dark about the extent of his illness, raising suspicions that his cancer may have spread from an initial baseball-sized tumor that was removed from his pelvis.

Despite his cancer, Chavez is seeking a new six-year term at an election that is shaping up to be the toughest political fight of his career due to his ill health and a serious opposition challenge.

His government faces potentially embarrassing revelations about links to drug trafficking from a former Supreme Court justice who fled the country and has reportedly become a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant.

Chavez remains very popular among poorer Venezuelans who have benefited from his social programs, which redistribute some of the country’s vast oil wealth.

Almost all recent opinion polls have given Chavez a comfortable double-digit lead over Capriles, and his frequent trips to Cuba for treatment appear not to have changed that.

A survey released on Monday by local pollster Hinterlaces showed 53 percent of Venezuelan voters planning to back Chavez in October, versus 34 percent for Capriles, a one-percentage point gain for the president since a similar poll last month.

“Although President Chavez is not present in the media, his illness is the talk of the nation,” said Hinterlaces director Oscar Schemel, who added that emotional factors are working in Chavez’s favor in the run-up to the election.

Antigua Observer

by RTC Director

St Vincent PM admitted to hospital in Barbados

The prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), Dr Ralph Gonsalves, was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados at the weekend after complaining of feeling unwell.

Investigations and tests conducted by medical staff at the hospital disclosed that there seemed to be a focus of infection somewhere, which was manifested as a persistent fever, among other symptoms. It was subsequently discovered that there was a skin infection resulting in the formation of an abscess. The abscess has been drained and other necessary treatment initiated.

“Since then the PM is feeling much better and on the road to a speedy recovery. He is overly anxious to be out of the hospital and to continue his duties, but we are all insisting that he uses the opportunity to get some well needed rest,” Dr Douglas Slater, SVG minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement.

“We wish to thank all of the many persons who have called and otherwise expressed their concerns, prayers and best wishes for his speedy recovery. The PM has asked to convey his gratitude and appreciation to all Vincentians and others for their demonstration and expressions of support and goodwill. He especially asked to express thanks to all for the prayers offered on his behalf. We will follow his progress closely and report accordingly as deemed necessary,” Slater added.

Gonsalves was in Barbados en route to the Middle East as part of an official tour.

By Caribbean News Now contributor

by RTC Director

Cayman Islands premier facing three police investigations

A spokesman for the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) confirmed on Saturday that Cayman Islands premier McKeeva Bush is now the subject of three separate police investigations.

According to police, one of the investigations involves allegations of financial irregularities in relation to a land deal. In addition, a further allegation of financial irregularities has been made, which is entirely separate from the first investigation.

“Finally, allegations have been made in relation to the involvement of the premier in the periphery of a recent incident where a quantity of explosives were imported to the Cayman Islands without the necessary permit,” the police spokesperson said.

“All three of these investigations are actively ongoing. The governor and the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] are being kept fully updated,” the spokesperson added, concluding that “It would be inappropriate for the RCIPS to make any further comment in relation to any of the allegations made, or the status of the investigations, at this time.”

The first of the three investigations was confirmed by Governor Duncan Taylor in July 2011, when he acknowledged that the investigation in question centred on a letter said to be written by Bush in 2004, when he was then Leader of Government Business.

The letter to developer Stan Thomas, written on Windsor Development Corporation letterhead, and apparently faxed from Bush’s ministry in October 2004, asked for a balance of $350,000 to be sent to the corporation’s account as a result of Bush having “ensured that all of the proposed re-zoning issues” had been approved by Cabinet.

Windsor Development Corporation is reportedly owned by Bush’s wife, although according to the official register of interests he is a signatory on the corporation’s bank account.

At the time, land purchased by Thomas was the subject of a zoning application. It was rezoned in July 2004 by the Legislative Assembly after Cabinet approved a change in the territory’s development map.

However, at a press briefing on Friday, attended by Britain’s Minister for the Overseas Territories Henry Bellingham, who was on his first visit to the Cayman Islands, local media workers were taken by surprise by Governor Taylor’s admission of a second such investigation in response to questions about the first enquiry.

Neither Bellingham nor Taylor would comment further and the governor said it was up to the police commissioner to take the investigation forward and that at some point it would be up to the director of public prosecutions to take the matter any further than that. He then revealed that there was another hitherto undisclosed investigation in relation to Bush.

No details of this second investigation were given but Bellingham said he was confident of the independence of the police and that they were handling the investigations properly.

He added that it was important to keep at arm’s length from the investigations but he was being updated on the progress.

“I can say that there is a further investigation, a second investigation involving the premier but, as the minister said, it is not appropriate for me to comment on it in any detail,” Taylor stated, adding it was for the police commissioner to comment.

Then on Saturday came the police announcement of a third investigation related to explosives that were apparently imported into the Cayman Islands without the necessary permit.

Earlier, on Thursday in a broadcast on local radio in response to opposition calls for him to reveal the details of the police investigation against him, Bush stated that he was aware of “none”.

On Saturday morning, his press secretary stated that the premier had no comment yet, as he was still trying “to determine what the governor was referring to” when he made the second disclosure at the press briefing on Friday.

These revelations in the Cayman Islands come amidst ongoing investigations in another British overseas territory, the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), into allegations of widespread government corruption that have resulted in a number of former cabinet ministers being charged with various offences of bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Former TCI premier Michael Misick is currently a fugitive from justice following the issue of an arrest warrant and an Interpol ‘Red Notice’.

By Caribbean News Now contributor

by RTC Director