No slowdown in spending among the many rich on this Bahamian island

Phrase that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had been seen on the marina of this tiny speck (5 sq. miles) of an island for a trip was met with bemusement by the vacationers who had gathered to observe the magnificent sundown on the bar, and with dismay by locals, apprehensive that their little speck of paradise was turning into the subsequent Saint Barts.

“I hear she’s staying proper up the road,” a girl sitting alone on the bar instructed us. She was cheerfully downing completely chilled prosecco in a champagne flute.   

The locals appeared unimpressed.

“It is the 2 percenters who’re coming, and the ultra-rich,” one shopkeeper instructed us, noting that enterprise had been brisk among the many wealthier Individuals, Canadians and Brits which are the spine of the economic system right here.   

Perhaps too brisk.  

“We’ve got 20 billionaires on this island alone. The site visitors is attending to be insufferable,” she mentioned, eyeing me suspiciously.  

I straightened up and tried trying like a two percenter, however I wasn’t certain what they seemed like.

Site visitors? What site visitors? I seemed out the window of her store. Most individuals had been driving round in golf carts. With a inhabitants of just one,800, Harbour Island and its one and solely city, Dunmore City, makes Saint Barts (inhabitants 11,000) seem like midtown Manhattan.

The girl herself, she defined, had moved to Eleuthera, a 10-minute water taxi experience away, the place the hoi polloi hardly ever come, apparently.

All of which begs the query: Why on earth would anybody, not to mention Taylor Swift and a bunch of billionaires, come to this tiny speck?  

Why are there so many large yachts sitting in Valentines Marina?

Harbour Island is barely an island. It is an island off an island, on this case Eleuthera, some 60 miles northeast of Nassau. You may’t fly in. You must fly to Eleuthera, take a taxi to a dock a couple of miles away, and take a water taxi to Harbour Island.  

This inaccessibility, apparently, is a serious promoting level for the tiny group of individuals that may match on the island, and afford to pay the steep (Saint Barts-style) costs.

The operative phrase is “tiny.” The biggest lodge has 41 rooms; the dozen or so different accommodations have lower than that.  Altogether, there cannot be greater than 250 lodge rooms on your entire island.  It is unlikely you will see a giant world chain arrange store right here. I’s uncertain the infrastructure might help a big lodge.  Not surprisingly, there appears to be a brisk enterprise renting out the few homes on the island.

Stroll across the city for a couple of days, although, and you may see why a small group of vacationers preserve coming again and appear very bored with making it greater:

• Pink Sands Seashore: This is without doubt one of the nice seashores of the Caribbean, certainly of the world. It truly is pinkish, due to the decaying shells of microscopic sea creatures. It stays white, a whole lot of ft offshore, no seaweed, no rocks, no something, simply blue water. It is flat, and the sand is compact so you may stroll with out sinking in.  It is so compact that folks experience horses up and down the entire three-mile stretch.
• The eating places: How is it potential that an island with a couple of hundred guests can help so many nice eating places? There’s native locations Queen Conch or Ma Ruby, which serves terrific Caribbean meals and is thought for its “Cheeseburger in Paradise” (It is served on a brioche-style bun, and supposedly earned the praises of Jimmy Buffett). There’s terrific Italian meals at Aquapazza, and basic Caribbean meat and fish dishes at Latitude 25 on the Coral Sands Lodge, or on the stylish Dunmore Lodge, or at Malcolm 51 on the swanky all-cottage Pink Sands Resort, or the Rock Home, or The Touchdown, or at Valentines. And nonetheless you may’t a get reservation on many nights.
• The homes: You’d suppose an island with so many rich guests and residents could be filled with big McMansions and multi-acre compounds. They’re definitely right here. The boat captain we employed for a day cruise quipped that “the millionaires stay on the north aspect, the billionaires stay on the south aspect, and everybody else lives within the center.”  Individuals like Invoice Gates, Ron Perlman, Mickey Drexler, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, and Wayne Huizenga are mentioned to have houses right here. However Dunmore City is filled with modest, one and two-story houses which are ablaze with colour: blues, yellows, reds, a veritable explosion of pastels, together with purple morning glories in all places.
• The church buildings:  Stroll round on a Sunday and you may hear singing.  It is a spiritual nation:  90% belong to some spiritual denomination, although it is largely Protestant (Baptists and Anglicans), with Roman Catholics and a smattering of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Greek Orthodox, and others.  We attended the Lighthouse Church of God to listen to Pastor Samuel Higgs and guitarist Rocky Sanders and a heavenly group of singers rock the home with old-school gospel music. Mick Jagger and Lenny Kravitz have additionally stopped by. Higgs and Sanders performed golf equipment in Europe earlier than coming again to the island.
• The individuals: The Bahamian persons are well-known for his or her heat and friendliness, and it comes out in abundance on a small island like this. Simply say “good morning” to anybody, and they’ll cease and say, “Good morning!  How are you?”  They’re going to smile, and so they imply it.

 Whereas the locals could also be complaining about site visitors and wealthy individuals, do not count on the federal government of the Bahamas to close the door. Tourism accounts for 50% of the GDP of the nation, and employs practically 70% of the workforce.  Due to that infusion of money, per capita earnings is the third largest within the Western Hemisphere (behind the U.S. and Canada).

Luxurious journey could also be booming, however journey to the Caribbean generally stays robust. Arrivals had been up 14.3% final 12 months, in accordance with a latest report by the Caribbean Tourism Group reported by Caribbean Journal.  

And whereas the locals could complain, any small island or metropolis would kill to get the form of intense loyalty locations like this appear to engender.

The girl on the bar at Valentines mentioned she had been coming right here for 20 years, and had her honeymoon right here.  She had flown into Eleuthera on a non-public airplane along with her husband (who owned automobile dealerships within the Midwest), her kids, and buddies of theirs. They’d chartered a ship to spend a couple of weeks within the Bahamas, and could be going south to even smaller islands.

Why was she sitting alone on the bar?

Her household, she mentioned with a smile, was off searching for Taylor Swift.