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Business View Caribbean
Today, tourists still stream into the British Virgin Is-
lands, Fraser notes, “but the majority of them are fly-
ing into neighboring islands – St. Thomas, basically
– and coming over by boat.” And, for most trav-
elers, this just makes better economic sense.
“If you were in the BVI, or if you were in Miami
and wanted to come to the BVI, you would have
to make at least one stop over in San Juan,”
he says. “Now, a price for that, compared to a
price from St. Thomas - which takes you direct-
ly to Miami - is considerably different. Some-
times it can be even half the price to go out of
St. Thomas. And the boat fare is not very sig-
nificant, so passengers have been taking that
route. What we would like to do is bring back
those passengers directly from Miami to Beef
Island, with cheaper fares and without having
to go through the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Another initiative for the BVIAA, according to
Fraser, is to put in place a major statistical unit that
will help it to gather statistics in a more meaningful
way. “We do collect statistics, now, but we think that
