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- On The Horizon
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- Faith: “Faith is the evidence of things not seen”
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- Graduation Ceremony 2009
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- Dennery Village – Focusing On The Positives
- 2008 Graduation Address
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- 8 Days of National Arts and Culture
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- Daniel and Lenihan off to Singapore Friendship Camp
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- HOSPITAL CONTROVERSY
- Hospital can be elsewhere but National Stadium can’t
- Domestic violence victims break silence
- TV Guide Returns To LIME Digital
- Super J IGA Supports Diabetes Month
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- To what extent has WASCO already been privatised?
- Youngsters Making a Difference
- The Realization of Nerissa’s Dream
- The death of a Friend
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- Barbados at the forefront
- AIDS widespread among St. Lucian youth
- Two U-19 Netball Semi Final Today
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- Why Violence?
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- Freedom Bay-Saint Lucia development previews at th...
- FirstCaribbean Daily Markets Report
- The inner gallery reopens
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- One Million Super J Loyalty Points Up for Grabs
- LIME Brings Christmas Early
- Salvation Army to give 400 gifts
- Lucian Men Answer the Call
- Fond St Jacques to benefit from eco tourism
- First Class Honours Graduate Focus
- Youth Fest 2K Nice - Sunday December 13th
- Who’s the real thief?
- Southern Hospitality?
- SLPYO Press Statement on Students at SALCC Library...
- How Will History Judge the Present and Past Prime ...
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- 1000 Words!!
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- SLNCA/SMJ Twenty/20 Gathers Momentum
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November
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51 comments:
Good news. Jetblue, i soon come!!.
Congratulations to the government of St Lucia. Easy does it is the only winning way. Rough start but impressive finish.
Maybe now T-Chas' critics will shut up. LOL
Soon come? What stupid English....
"Soon come? What stupid English...."
It's Jamaican patois. Not that that makes things any better...
Please keep it in Jamaica.
What Gloom and Gloom the writer is talking about? If you are porting something why refer to what people say about how St Lucia is doing? People do not falsely say things are not going well in the country. Most of the ministers or ministry are not doing much work,and that is a fact. What is so great that a few planes are coming to St Lucia. Why do we have an international airport? Which airport planes does not land on? We are in the time of the year, when people from the cold north travel to the warm tropic anyway. So what is the big deal?
Very well done Mr. Chastanet.
While he has made mistakes we also need to congratulate Allan who has the knack and experience to deal with international organizations/firms in the tourism industry and make them feel welcome.
Allan means well and is not a vindictive or vicious person like the liberal non performers who always want to tarnish his name.
I know of all the personal anguish he goes through dealing with the crap they throw at you in politics in St. Lucia but he has held up well to those no class antagonists who poison politics in St. Lucia.
The more flights , the more advantages to our youth and the women in our country.
Well done Allan !
This to me is a big deal!
I've always said Chastanet is working really hard for his Ministry. I couldn't understand how people were shooting the man down just because of some perception of him as being aloof to poor people.
Articulate and visionary, qualities lacking in our political leaders right now. Plus he's not a career politician! The man actually brings a wealth of private sector experience to his role.
We need to see just how valuable an asset this man is to changing the political landscape in St. Lucia and we need to stop being misled by "expert" politicians.
For these people who stay overseas and are quick to congratulate Chastanet, and say how great he is. They must go to St Lucia and speak yo the poor taxi drivers and hear their cries how he Chastanet is trying his best to run them out of their livelihood. What sense does it make for planes to land in St Lucia and only the HAVES will benefit and the DONT HAVES either dont get anything or bearly get the scrapes.
I am glad that the previous poster mentioned the taxi drivers. Many of them are wonderful people who do an excellent job, are courteous and the tourists appreciate them and they contribute much to the industry. I know taxi drivers that have has decade long relationships with some regular tourists because of the standards they keep.
Yet many are indiscipline, pay no taxes to contribute to the development of St. Lucia even though they are some of the greatest beneficiaries through tax breaks and tax free tips running into thousands of dollars annually. They are paid cash so the tax man cannot even calculate their wages. They live like kings compared to 80% of St. Lucians.
The poster is the typical clown making taxi drivers out to be VICTIMS, the same victimhood that is the basis of the liberals in America to make mendicants out of black people and keeping them down in servitude and mental slavery.
What victims ? What poor taxi drivers? I know taxi drivers with one or two bimmers and 26 seaters making a killing on the tourist industry. As in any capitalist industry some will make it and others will not. That is why the free enterprise system is so successful because some will always be striving to be the best in the business.
Those castigating Allan are those supporting the losers for political purposes who want to point out the victims who in many cases are the lazy, incompetent taxi drivers of the lot. These are the taxi drivers running two or three women at the same time with four or five outside children that they have to support on their money and the only way they have to keep up their poor standards is for them to control the industry as a monopoly letting them do what they want and destroying the industry in the process.
At least I know that Allan has the industry at heart and for the survival of tourism for ALL St. Lucians I would rather take him than the loser victimhood taxi drivers that make up part of the taxi driver population.
You honestly believe that everyone who offered congratulations are based overseas? Why a myopic mindset!
I see what is happening there. You aim to shot the minister and his government. You hope that they will fail and enough people suff to gloat polically.
When signs are becoming evident that there is a ray of hope for the country, you still can't bring yourself to say well done!
This is the strategy of a losing mindset. They prefer pain over progress to justify why one party should be in office over another.
I am amazed when i hear people speak about taxi drivers and bus drivers not paying taxes. That is one of the reasons i know they are overseas, because they take their example from the U.S system where everybody must personal taxes. In St Lucia the government collect taxes from these sectors from the number plates, the route band, they pay extra on their licencs and insurance, they buy more gas and parts therefore thus contributing taxes. It is unfair to call taxi drivers lazy because they work for themselves, and laziness will only affect them. Is taxi drivers living as kings is something bad? After all they are St Lucians and they deserve a decent living in their home land. Having one or two transports is just an investment, they have to work their hearts to pay these very expensive form of transportation.
Where are all the yard fowls who were calling for election? Did anybody hear Stephenson King on RCI?
Where are all the yard fowls who were calling for election? Did anybody hear Stephenson King on RCI?
What did King say on RCI?
The joker in the pack has still not addressed any of my points except to say that he thinks I live overseas. Typical. They never address issues but only go on emotional victimhood crying.
The fact is everyone else pays the taxes you are talking about. When a taxi driver does not pay $15,000 - $35,000 or more in the taxes on an imported vehicle, how does that compare to the few extra dollars they pay in some other fees ? No comparison so stop the hoodwinking.
Listen to this excuse. THEY BUY MORE GAS. What a clown. You buy more gas because this is a variable expense in order to do business. The more passengers you carry the more money you make therefore the more gas you use. You win with more money in your pocket thanks to Allan Chastanet bringing more airlift into St. Lucia. Thank God you use more gas because it indicates you are making more money from the industry you say is conrolled by the "HAVES".
The clown ( in terrible, illiterate English to prove he is a malaway) then goes on to say - IS TAXI DRIVERS LIVING AS KINGS IS SOMETHING BAD. Wow ! In his (or her) previous post he said that taxi drivers were the HAVE NOTS, intimating they were the victims of an oppressive system that was using them. Now all of a sudden they are living like kings as I said in my post. You see how easy it is to destroy those ideas and banal sound bites that those people throw around to destroy a system that puts bread in our mouths. From one post to the next they contradict themselves and prove what lying opportunists they are.
Thank you Mr. Chastanet for letting the taxi drivers continue to live like kings while getting all the breaks us ordinary citizens do not get.
The person who said that they buy more gas.
Already they forget that the Government has lost millions in tax revenue from gas because of concessions given to bus drivers.
Can you prove how much money the government have lost? The government has no money of their own, the money they have is the very taxes, you all claim they do not get from the drivers. If people including the drivers do not pay taxes, you cannot blame the tax payers, it is the indictment of the government to put measures in place to collect these taxes, because people will not just volunteer to pay taxes. I like the name calling, i thought it was illiterate people who make their point by calling others names. Why are we so quick to shower praise on a man for work we are paying him to do, as if he is doing us a favor.
Even though King say what he want on RCI, you think St Lucians are still stupid to vote back a no productive government into office? Kenny has provided a secondary school place for all of us, so now we are enlightened, we cannot be fooled by semi literates like King, Guy Joseph, As in James, As T Fam, Easy cal, etc,etc
I predict that Allen Chastanet will be PM within the next decade, also Jeanine Compton will be our first female PM.
Which party he will run with? he will have to form his own party, because he has no seat with the uwp and the uwp CANNOT win an election in St Lucia anytime soon. Just because a few planes are landing in St Lucia, that is all the achievement a man need to be PM of St Lucia. What about the millions that disappear in his ministry and the culprit was sent overseas? What are his other achievements for three years?
Let time be the judge.
How can time be the judge? The people is the judge, they are not stupid anymore. They will never elect a none performing government. When i speak to people you know what they tell me, "you know when Kenny was in power we could have gotten a bag of cement in St Lucia to make a medicine."
How do you make medecine with cement?
Alan Chastenet may not be perfect, but name even 1 cabinet minister in the former SLP government who knew as much about his job as Chastenet knows about his.
We have a few people in the present cabinet whose intentions are honourable, and a few whose intentions are not. Do not throw out the baby with the bath water.
It is better to have a few good contributors than a whole cabinet of losers. The SLP is failing in its responsibility to provide an alternative.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his military on Sunday to prepare for a possible armed conflict with Colombia while accusing the United States of trying to provoke a war between the South American neighbours.
"The best way to avoid war is preparing for it," Chavez told military officers during his weekly television and radio program.
"The empire is more threatening than ever," he said, referring to the U.S. "Don't make a mistake, Mr. Obama, by ordering an attack against Venezuela by way of Colombia."
Chavez has criticized a recent agreement between the U.S. and Colombia that would give U.S. troops greater access to Colombian military bases, calling it a threat to regional stability.
The two pact-signing countries say the deal is necessary to fight the war on drugs and a decades-old insurgency in Colombia. Militants often use Venezuela's border region as a haven to resupply and treat their wounded.
There was no immediate reaction from either the Colombian or U.S. government to Chavez's latest remarks.
Tensions along the Venezuela-Colombia border have been exacerbated in recent weeks by a series of shootings and slayings.
Four men on motorcycles shot and killed two Venezuelan National Guard troops at a checkpoint near the border, prompting Venezuela to temporarily close some border crossings.
Venezuela also sent 15,000 soldiers to the border on Thursday, saying it was necessary to increase security.
With files from The Associated Press
***********************************
Me thinks Chavez is one crazy mother.
What has your Chastanet achieved in three years? Go to St Lucia and see for yourself what the SLP achieved, what Compton did not achieved in 30 years. In two more years they will continue the development of St Lucia.
we'll see in 2 yrs then.
You can run your mouth as much as you want about what you claim Kenny accomplished. The truth is whatever good he accomplished has been eclipsed by Rochamel etc. I like King's chances and others are right the people are the judges.
My advise is to stop screaming from the top of your lungs that UWP can win. They chance of winning is getting clearer day by day with every new project which is started about the country. It's the bread and butter issues that matters to the people not your crazy and obsesed rants of UWP can't win.
When King can speak of calling an election we know that he is feeling the right mood.
My special thanks to the government of St Lucia.
Someone please tell me what King said on RCI?
Is it true that the Taiwanese paid for a poll that showed the UWP winning 13 -4 ? I find it hard to believe as I thought it would be closer than that.
Please tell me which projects that are starting in the country? What bread and butter issues is happening in St Lucia? You think in your right mind St Lucians will re elect King? Give me three good reasons why he should be re elected to lead St Lucia?
I really don't know what King said on RCI and nobody wants to answer the bloody question.
He said he will be re elected because of the good works he and his cronies are doing in St Lucia. Can you imagine that.
Can you imagine King talking about re election before he even begin to work for our tax dollars we are paying him.
It looks as if Flambeaus from all over are fired up?
What's happening Laborites? Why does it seem as if King's pronoucement have knocked us off our games? Why does the party seems so sleepy?
Did they give us something to sleep. Why is King suddenly the cowboy riding on the horse and the SLP the party riding on a turtle?
Short Answer:
K E N N Y D. A N T H O N Y
You right the flambeaus are fired OUT, they remain two years to go OUT. They are so fired out, they cannot even arganise a convention, the last one they had ended in confusion. It is three years and they have never tested how fired up they are by holding a public meeting. You right again, being a cowboy is all King deserve, because he is very confused in the house of assembly, and he is a sorry state of affair as a PM. Kenny has to be correcting him all the time, what a shame.
Oh my God:
There are so many of you posting your opinion to this story that I find are quite childish.
We have a crisis on our hands in St Lucia regarding the very survival of a nation and you retards are picking on each other. Talk about the issue in the story not each other.
Obviously many flights mean that revenue is coming to the island and some will benefit from that revenue.
However, a huge percentage of this revenue comes from all inclusiveness and that means the bulk of the actual cash stays offshore which is a sin.
In other words people come to the island to visit our shores and enjoy our sun, sand and surf without ever interacting with the majority of those in the hotel industry or the local population of St Lucia.
All inclusiveness was designed to keep locals out of the equation, not to protect our visitors from criminals as our deceptive hoteliers would have you believe.
In the old days, a tourist dollar touched every part of the St Lucian economy and infrastructure directly or indirectly. Everyone benefited through out the island.
Now a visitor knows very little about the St Lucian way of life because of no direct contact. When these visitors return to their home countries and are asked “how was St Lucia? they have very little to reply to because all they did was stay in their prison like protective compound and eat and drink as much as they could because they paid for it in advance where they came from not in St Lucia.
By the way, most of the supplies needed to operate these all inclusive hotels are usually shipped from elsewhere to sustain these guests. There should be laws in place to make sure that some of these needed supplies originate from St Lucia in order for the infrastructure to benefit in the wake of such a parasitic foreign policy allowed by the government.
Until all inclusiveness is removed or amended to benefit everyone, tourism will never be the same.
Parasites like “Butch Stewart” love it here because our government allows him to do whatever he wants. Butch better enjoy this now because this gravy train will soon run off the tracks and derail.
Our government should and must be the one running St Lucia, not foreign interest or the small group of elite and privilege locals who encourages foreign investment to take advantage of a nation without a backbone.
However, Chastanet have done plenty to keep tourism alive from experience and knowledge. If all the rest of the politicians except Kenny had half of Chastanet’s enthusiasm, genuine dedication and knowledge, St Lucia would be a better place today.
In fact, I hardly know the man. I respect the man and the job he is doing for St Lucia, that’s all. I deal in facts, reality and evidence.
He doesn’t need the job, he wants it because he can make a difference. Many of the other politicians need the job to become sakaboys so they can live like mafia kingpins to oppress their fellow St Lucians.
Dantes
To Dantes:
yuor post has some salient points but why do you go off on tangents like some poor little victim of the "oppressive white man". Stop the excuses now.
The fact is that we our now our own MASSA. We are the Government that sets the rules by which we live.
I agree (even though I come from the MASSA class of old) that the Butch Stewarts (whom I admire as one of the greatest entrepreneurs produced by the Caribbean)have to be watched in terms of how he sets some of the terms of trade. The problem is that if you beleive in the free enterprise system you have to understand that the freedom to make your money is how the system works.
Job creation will never come from the malaway. Even with all our sand, sea and sun we will get nowhere if we do not have the Butchs and Michael Chastanets translating these raw materials into wealth and jobs.
The problem is when we have politicians who collude with these economic titans and who forget why we the people vote then into power. In order to get campaign contributions and feel big they hob nob with the moneybags when in fact they should be thinking about the people of St. Lucia.
So stop blaming Butch. He creates jobs. He puts food on the table of our families. He has a god given talent that the capitalist systen allows to florish and make him and the country wealthier.
It is up to the Government to run a proper agricultural dept and enact JUDICIOUS laws, to ensure that a certain amount of local products get on the plate of the tourists.
It is our elected representatives (under both parties) who for years have allowed foreigners to get jobs that St. Lucians are not even allowed to apply for or if they apply they know they are not getting the jobs.
So do not throw out the baby with the bath water. Do not blame those that take advantage of corrupt politicians. We can even go as far as to blame ourselves because 99% of the politicians we have as MPs or who are in waiting think of nothing but themselves and will do no better or worst than those already in power.
Conventions don't win elections, conventional wisdom does. King has the right approach and the right strategy to beat the SLP at their intellectual game.
Increased airlift is of course good for tourism, which would hopefully increase visitor arrivals and overall economic activity, which is much needed to offset the poor performance occuring due to the financial crisis. However, in many regards, Saint Lucia's airlift has benefited from the financial crisis and permit me to briefly explain. There has been an overall reduction in the price of oil which is a major contributor to airfare cost. As opposed to major growing destinations in South-East Asia/Pacific/Africa/Middle East, Saint Lucia is a shorter haul flight from both the N.America and Europe, which means generally a more affordable vacation offering.
The two other major factors helping Saint Luciaare first that Saint Lucia has been lauded as the next IT-island from around 2005-2006. Good market recognition and changes in the market itself, in my opinion will help Saint Lucia overall to increase its tiny market share. Also, it is predominantly a honeymoon destination. Weddings are pretty much constant and it provides a good basis for being somewhat recession-proof.
So kudos overall to the tourism leadership but I dont think its all their doing like some - to use this popular term - "hacks" would like us to believe.
Further, I'm not too keen to heap praise on Allan Chastanet who is insistent on destroying our core product - i.e. our environment and heritage. A man who wants to develop Pigeon Island as a theme park, pushing high density tourism on the environmentally sensitive northeast coast and is eager to see the back of UNESCO's sill regulations for the Pitons World Heritage Site cannot possibly have the long term interest of the state. We play politics with all our sectors sadly and it is time that we are more objective. In my opinion, Mr. Chastanet is surely the most competent of all the current cabinet but it says more about the cabinet than Mr. Chastanet. So big business would cheer on Mr. Chastanet but I'll cheer on the ability for better education so that we don't have to continue to depend on big business and start innovating, entrepreneuring and spreading the wealth.
My God. Make Pigeon Island into a theme park!? The man has gone mad.
Chastanet does shine brightly, but only so because of how dim many of his colleagues are it would seem.
We need more politicians like Chastanet, in terms of his enthusiasm and effort, if only to rein him in and have a better quality political landscape.
Because of the negative lenses that you guys are wearing, you just can't say anything good and if you do then you have to offset it with something negative.
The truth is, it is a good thing to have more flights to St.Lucia, end of story.
Exactly. Thr point is that on Chastanet's watch we have all these flights coming in.
Now we also have to see how these flights and the bumper cruise ship season is turned into our benefit.
Congratulations Mr. Chastanet. After months of hitting you with political hatred, you have come through for St Lucia. Well done ye favorite son.
Published on Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Caribbean News Net
LONDON, England -- Saint Lucia's Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation Senator Allen Chastanet has been named the Caribbean Travel Personality of the Year.
Senator Chastanet won the honour at the prestigious 2009 World Travel Awards in London, England over the weekend.
Senator Allen Chastanet, Saint Lucia's Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation
The World Travel Awards acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry.
"It's with great humility that I accept this award on behalf of the Government and people of Saint Lucia," said the Senator, who saluted his fellow Saint Lucian nationals for their commitment to excellence across the hospitality industry.
At the Awards, Saint Lucia once again copped the Caribbean's and World's Leading Honeymoon Destination designations, while the Caribbean's Leading Spa Resort went to The Body Holiday LeSport. The Caribbean's Leading Hotel Brand and the World's Leading All-Inclusive Company went to Sandals Resorts.
"As a Saint Lucian, I am deeply honored to witness such a small destination create a big bang on the world stage," said Saint Lucia's Director of Tourism Louis Lewis, who acknowledged that the weekend awards were additional stimulus for the Saint Lucia Tourist Board to continue striving to improve in today's competitive travel and tourism environment.
Chastanet, who is credited with starting the world acclaimed Saint Lucia Jazz festival, was Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Windjammer Landing in Saint Lucia before being appointed the island's Director of Tourism in the early 1990s.
He became Director of Sales and Marketing at Island Outpost in the mid-90s before serving as Director, then Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Air Jamaica for eight years.
In 2001, Travel Agent magazine named Senator Chastanet "Caribbean Destination Person of the Year," and in 2003 he returned to his native Saint Lucia to open Coco Resorts in Rodney Bay Village.
He was appointed to the Saint Lucia cabinet in 2006 and assumed the chairmanship of the Caribbean Tourism Organization.
Well, I said the man was good for our tourism. I know talent when I see it.
This is great news, I wish our people were as generous with the accolades.
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