Construction starts next week at the site of the new terminal for LF Wade International Airport, while the long awaited St George’s resort will also break ground next month.

Michael Dunkley, the Premier, told The Royal Gazette that a starting date for the airport work would be announced “very shortly”.

The updates came as he prepared to head back from addressing the World Economic Forum in Miami. Mr Dunkley said the event was “an opportunity to promote Bermuda, sell Bermuda and build relationships”.

Meetings included a chat with Arnold Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation, which has “a small footprint in Bermuda that we are keen to enlarge” — and with Mark Lunt, principal of real estate and hospitality at Ernst and Young.

Mr Dunkley’s address to a panel on “cultivating an ecosystem of entrepreneurship” focused on the island’s financial services sector and the benefits of the imminent America’s Cup.

Last year, the six teams associated with the event spent more than $22 million in the island, and Mr Dunkley said the Cup had brought a “local business boom”.

Some 300 participants have relocated to the island.

Wedco estimated that about 500 jobs had been created in the extensive restorations at Dockyard, he said. While 50 per cent of America’s Cup contracts went to “small or medium-sized businesses”, assisted by short-term loans from the Bermuda Economic Development Corporation.