Grenada offers huge concessions to attract Sandals

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Calling it a potential game-changer for its tourism industry, Grenada has agreed to a huge raft of concessions to woo Gordon “Butch” Stewart, the king of the Caribbean vacation, to its shores.

Grenada believes the well-known Sandals mega-brand will assist with the marketing the island as a desired destination and the increased room stock will help to secure the island's “endangered airlift”.

The reported concessions show just how far our competitors in the Caribbean are willing to go to land new resort investment in the tough global economy, and Bermuda may want to take note.

Grenada’s deal with Stewart’s Sandals Resort International brings an injection of $100 million into the local economy and the hiring of up to 425 workers, Caribbean media reported.

Sandals Resorts purchased the 100-room LaSource Resort, a Grenada family-owned business that ceased operations on October 15. The purchase price for the resort has not been disclosed but the Government said that in wooing Sandals it agreed to waive the company’s payment of corporate taxes for 25 years.

Other concessions to Sandals, Burke disclosed, include waiving value added tax (VAT) that normally would have been required to be paid in some instances, and also placing a cap on Sandals’ property taxes for 25 years.

“We agreed that we’re going to waive import duties for 25 years and waive the VAT for 15 years on consumer goods,” Finance Minister Nazim Burke told Caribbean News Now.

According to Burke, “In taking these steps, we recognise that we were doing something that was special but we felt we had to do it. We did it because we recognise the enormous benefit that the presence of Sandals can have, and will have, for Grenada.”

On completion of the third and final project phase, Sandals LaSource Grenada is expected to have a 265-room resort and a staff of 425.

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