A local advocate and a noted historian have praised government’s plans to inject millions of dollars into the heritage tourism market, but there are concerns about the island losing its unique cultural flavour in the name of financial gain.
Past President of the Barbados Entrepreneurship and Tourism Association (BETA), Deborah Grant, told Barbados TODAY that Barbados has a uniquely marketable heritage experience and the celebration of this aspect of the island has been underutilised in the past.
During last Tuesday’s Budget speech in the House of Assembly, Prime Minister Mia Mottley revealed that the government had been in talks with tourism stakeholders to map out how best to capitalise on the island’s heritage. She said some $15 million was to be made available to the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. (BTII) to assist in the area.
“Barbados in general has so many stories that you cannot get anywhere else in the world, and that is the other thing that is also amazing to me. Why would you for example be pushing the sun, sea and sand all of the time, when it’s not uniquely Barbados. When it comes to our heritage, our stories are unique… You cannot get another part of the world that can claim that they are the birthplace of rum, or that they are the ones who created grapefruit. No one else can tell that story, only us,” Grant explained.
Grant, who is also a member of the Barbados National Trust, noted that though there have been plans for some time to focus on developing historic areas, such as Bridgetown and the area of the Garrison, it was her hope that promised development for such critical areas would be made in collaboration with those well-versed in the history associated with the locations.
“I am fearful of what the Pierhead Project is going to be,” she said referring to the multi-million dollar development slated for the City. “I am waiting, but I am hearing that one of the buildings, at least, is going to be demolished. I am hoping for example that the Screwdock is preserved in its fullness and restored as much as possible.
“I don’t think that the policymakers [and] people who make decisions on these buildings, really fully appreciate the value of buildings. We have the Barbados National Trust’s headquarters at Wildey House, that is a beautiful property. We just need the money to restore it. The Morgan Lewis Windmill, the largest and last working windmill, give us the money to restore it… There are so many things that are there that just need a little bit of investment.”
Historian Professor Pedro Welch, shared similar sentiments to Grant’s, stressing that there needed to be a focus on preserving the island’s “patrimony” – artifacts and historic buildings – in the same way other jurisdictions have capitalised on their past.
“I recall visiting a place called Mystic in Connecticut (USA) several years ago, and they have a marine park where a lot of the old marine industries are preserved. We used to have people in Barbados called coopers, and these coopers used to build barrels of what was known as hogsheads to carry sugar, molasses and rum.
“If you go to Mystic they have craft villages where people continue to make barrels and hogshead and what not, and tourists come. They buy small replicas of those things. I would definitely think that it’s not so much an either or, it is along with, meaning that you invest in heritage tourism but you also spend some time trying to preserve the historic sites that we have.”
Professor Welch also applauded the news that an additional $15 million would be used in the digitisation of the records at the Archives Department.
“I am fully supportive of any attempt to preserve our records. As one who would have spent a lot of time at the Barbados Archives, going through a lot of our documents for our history, I would think that digitising our records is vitally important. I went to the registry once concerning my family heritage, and I was appalled to see that some of the books where the wills are recorded – specifically for my father’s will – some of these books are in danger. If you lose them sometimes you lose vital records.
“So my view is that I would 100 per cent support an attempt to digitise the records. Not only for our historical heritage, but also to preserve the records of our families… Barbadians need to know where they came from and need to be able to trace their background.”
(SB)
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