Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said the installation of white sand at the beach by Sandals has nothing to do with attracting a certain ethnicity but more to do with marketing by the company.
The Prime Minister was at the time speaking on WEFM’s Issue At Hand program where he noted that St. Vincent and the Grenadines is home to both black and white sand beaches.
“St. Vincent and the Grenadines has black sand and St. Vincent and the Grenadines has white sand. There is no issue of—as how it is hysterically put in News Newspaper on the front page the headlines, I didn’t really read the story—about putting white sand to attract the tourists, the white tourists, well it doesn’t have anything to do with ethnicity, it has everything to do with which market you are going for,” Gonsalves said.
The Prime Minister made mention of the Black Sands resort that is currently under construction at Peter’s Hope and how their marketing involves the black sand at the beach located there.
“You have Black Sands down at Peter’s Hope, and those persons are—the clientele which they are marketing, they are marketing for persons who would come and appreciate the black sand, the therapeutics and everything else,” he said.
Prime Minister Gonsalves noted that this is a practice also employed in places such as Hawaii and noted that there is no negative environmental impact as a result of it.
