David Jessop, Contributor

Jessop

Is Barbados about to become the shopping centre of the Caribbean? This is an issue that is now under active consideration between the island's Government and its private sector.

This move could place Barbados in a tourism category on its own and a new and radically different form of competition could emerge between Caribbean tourism destinations.

In meetings held under the auspices of Barbados' Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development, Senator Lynette Eastmond, discussions have taken place on the possibility of transforming the island's capital Bridgetown so that shoppers from the Eastern Caribbean, Trinidad and Guyana plus the tens of thousand of stay-over and cruise ship visitors might have a different experience.

The idea is to develop a high-end city centre retail environment so that the island's facilities more closely relate to the up-scale services and tourism centre that Barbados is fast becoming.

problems

Such a plan of course is fraught with the type of problems that arise when new thinking collides with the Caribbean's past.

If the project and others that will most probably follow elsewhere are to succeed, they will require a revolutionary change in Caribbean urban thinking so that cities come to be seen as jewels rather than a day time business environment or the home to an underclass.

Any project on the scale that appears to be envisaged in Barbados requires a change in both commercial conservatism and public sector thinking about everything from infrastructure to taxation. The high cost of freight, the slowness of the customs clearance procedures, the amount of retail space available, security, the absence of quality city centre restaurants will all have to be addressed.

Beyond this there will have to be a change in shop opening hours, a complete revamp of the untidy concrete and almost treeless environment that exists in most Caribbean city centres and a determination to address the now chronic traffic problems and lack of parking that afflict most of the region's capitals. All of which is to say nothing about the short-term social implications of creating consumer driven growth in nations that have pockets of poverty and urban deprivation.

real challenge

If Barbados succeeds in driving forward its plans - and experience suggests that the island's Government pays as much attention to delivery as to vision - what emerges will pose a real challenge for other Caribbean tourism destinations. It will over time by comparison force other visitor hubs such as Montego Bay, St Johns and San Juan to reconsider their offering and their city environment if they are to compete.

Whether Barbados can ever become the Western Hemisphere's Dubai or usurp Miami's role is doubtful, but it could be that shopping related developments, more properly described as consumerism, could become a new force for tourism-led change in the Caribbean in much the same way that it has in North America or Europe. The extent this is welcome or understood will be a challenge for all.