Business View Caribbean | September 2019

33 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN SEPTEMBER 2019 DELF INS BEACH RESORT types of visitors who are generally attracted to Bonaire’s stunning natural beauty and welcoming climate. But he is also investigating other areas, as well, such as medical tourism. “I’m looking into diversification,” he states. “For example, the 32 units we are currently building are available for disabled people, too, especially disabled divers, which is a niche market here and I think we can support these groups to come to Bonaire by building suitable units for them. Conference rooms would give us another targeted group, and the fitness studio will attract another targeted group that wants to have some kind of exercise when they go on holiday. So, by diversification of the targeted groups, and building facilities for them, we hope to fill all the rooms we are going to build.” While planning to grow, David asserts that the Delfins Beach Resort will not turn its back on the people of Bonaire, nor on the island’s ethos of sustainability and environmentally-sound practices. “We make an effort to find businesses here on the island to buy from, and we try to employ people from the island,” he avers. “We also try to be as green as possible with investment, for example, in our solar panels on all the roofs we have available. And we are looking into catching the wind with special windmills now in development in Holland. There are all sorts of things we try to do to be as sustainable as possible, like the water we use to rinse the laundry is re-used as the first rinse for the dirty laundry. Our main goal would be to have our carbon footprint be zero, while being energy neutral, not only because energy costs are very expensive here on the island, but also because of the environment. Bonaire is beautiful with lot of protected reefs and nature and it’s the reason why people come here. As a resort, we should be doing our business here as green as possible. We need to preserve all we have here for future generations, so that we can have our business for future generations.”