PHILIPSBURG--Government has plans to develop two branded hotels with at least 500 rooms within the next two years, Tourism and Economic Affairs Minister Franklin Meyers (UP) revealed during the meeting of the Central Committee of Parliament on Thursday dealing with consumer protection and price control.
Meyers said the move was to reduce dependence on foreign investors and give government the tools to create jobs.
The idea is to obtain funding for the "flagship" hotel project from the "new development bank" at attractive interest rates. The hotels will attract name brands on which to build a reputation, integrate marketing and standardise training for staff.
A similar approach to hotel development was employed with success by the Aruban Government in the past, the minister said.
While Meyers did not explain the concept of this new bank, it is believed government will move ahead with Deputy Prime Minister and United People's (UP) party leader Theo Heyliger's suggestion of pooling the money from the estate of the former Netherlands Antilles that belongs to St. Maarten with that of the country's share of the Central Bank of Cura�ao and St. Maarten, in a joint investment pot.
Tax reform is also a top priority. The minister said "one of our biggest problems" is too many loopholes in the tax structure that allow a large number of people to evade paying taxes. A large demographic is more willing to pay lawyers to fight tax obligation than to pay taxes, he added.
Meyers reiterated that tremendous investment was needed to upgrade the country's infrastructure. Some NAf. 500-750 million is needed to upgrade roads, drainage and other items.
Revision of the Tourism Master Plan TourMap into a national development plan is also on the table. The emphasis will be on attracting more airlift to fill hotel rooms and generate income for businesses and residents, according to the minister.
Upgrading the tourism product is also to be looked into with a government-developed and -regulated rating system for hotels and restaurants. This will ensure better level of service and quality to visitors and all other consumers.
A better awareness of the role of tourism and its importance to the economy hopefully will be taught soon in schools from grade one. A tourism education programme is under development, Meyers told Members of Parliament (MPs).
He told them, "We have to work on a more economically sound market ... by diversifying tourism and create jobs." He pointed out the country's inherent dependence on the United States and illustrated how prosperity there equals growth locally.
Growth is one thing, but ensuring fair competition is another. Meyers hopes to have the competition authority report ready by the end of the year.
Fair pricing will be taken a few steps further with ideas being fleshed out to hook up the 102 supermarkets to a centralised cash register service, so that government can control prices and collect the proper amount of taxes.
On this point, MP Roy Marlin (DP) said government should not get into buying the registers, but focus on putting the legislation in place that would make it mandatory for the supermarkets to adopt the system and software within a transition period of one year.
Another customer cost-monitoring move to come from government will be the activating of existing import/export ordinance articles to allow Custom officers to receive copies of original container manifests. Failure to comply will result in containers not being delivered to the recipients, Meyers explained. This control will be carried out based on an agreement between the Ministry of Tourism and Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Justice.
Control of maximum prices is expected to come into force by December 1.
Dealing further with price control and consumer protection, Meyers said government was looking into amending existing legislation to give economic controllers more authority to issue fines to businesses that break the law. He urged legislators to handle the amendments speedily, once submitted.
MP Louie Laveist, whose National Alliance (NA) party had requested the meeting that started on Monday, again raised concerns about gas stations charging different exchange rates for the guilder to the dollar and called for a non-partisan approach to come up with a way of curbing this practice.
Answering questions from independent MP Frans Richardson, Meyers disclosed that some 713 requests for business licences were pending, dating between January 2010 and October 2011, while 189 requests for cancellations had been received.
The majority of the cancellations ? 129 ? were for directors' licences and 60 were for various businesses from jewellery to clothing stores, construction companies, photo business and others. Meyers did not give the number of jobs lost due to closures. He said this was for the Ministry of Labour to answer.
Several MPs were concerned about the continuous price and other controls. MP Dr. Lloyd Richardson (NA) pointed out that the issue of gypsy taxis was still unchecked. To this, Meyers said controls were ongoing and were intensified especially with cruise ships in town.
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