The Potential of Whale Watching in the Caribbean: 1999+

20. St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Population: 111,000.
Land area: 389 sq km.
Tourist arrivals by air: 65,143 (-12.5% on prev. yr.)
Tourist arrivals by cruise ship: 31,405 (-50.3% on prev. yr.)
Total Tourist Expenditures: $70.6 million USD.
Tourism Budget: $3.5 million USD.
GDP at factor cost: $240.2 million USD.
1994 figures on whale watching: 800 people and total revenues of $153,000 USD.
1998 figures on whale watching: 600 people and total revenues of $100,000 USD.
Whale-watching ports (current or potential): Indian Beach, Kingstown, Bequia.
Land-based viewing sites: Limited information.
Whale-watching potential: Considerable to outstanding.
(Figures above are latest figures for 1997, except as noted.)
St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been fully independent as a member of the
British Commonwealth since 1979. At 18 miles (30 km) long by 11 miles (18 km) wide,
St. Vincent, the main island, is nearly 10 times the size of all the 32 Grenadines put
together. The country is located in the southern part of the Windward Islands between St.
Lucia to the north and Grenada to the south. The Grenadines extend in a long trail from St.
Vincent south to Grenada.
St. Vincent is steep and thickly forested, the massive La Soufrière Volcano
(seriously active as recently as 1979) surrounded by lush rainforest valleys and lower
reaches with fields of bananas, breadfruit and coconut palms, and mainly black sand
beaches. Most of its more than 100,000 population lives along the coast, especially in and
around the capital in the southeast, Kingstown. The Grenadines tend to be drier, with the
classic white sand beaches, easily qualifying for some of the more idyllic islands in the
Caribbean.
The main industry on St. Vincent is agriculture, and it dominates to a greater extent
than on most other eastern Caribbean islands, providing more than half of all employment.
In the Grenadines, however, the two main industries are tourism and fishing.
The Grenadines first fueled the upscale tourism industry here when it was
discovered some decades ago by yachters, followed by divers. Both pastimes remain
popular, with the diving still pristine, but in a setting undergoing seemingly subtle yet
profound changes with the steady development of resorts that started on Mustique in the
1960s and most recently extends to Canouan. Some of the islands have been entirely taken
over by private resorts, such as Petit St. Vincent and Palm Island. The largest of the
Grenadines, Bequia, with a resident population of a little more than 5,000, is only an hour
ferry or 15 minute flight from St. Vincent and attracts a more diverse group of visitors.
The biggest tourism change underway in the country is from the construction of a
cruise ship pier on the main island of St. Vincent. In 1997, before the pier, cruise ship
arrivals were some of the lowest in the Caribbean (only 10% of St. Lucia's; 12.5% of
Grenada's) at 31,400 arrivals, down more than 50% from 1996. The next few years should
show marked increases in cruise ship arrivals. This will affect the main island, particularly
the capital, but will leave the Grenadines largely to their own more relaxed, often
exclusive brand of tourism. Tourist arrivals to St. Vincent by air in 1997 were 65,100, up
12.5% from the previous year, with total expenditures of $70.6 million USD. Although the
expenditures are higher than those for Dominica or Grenada, the tourist and cruise ship
numbers are the lowest of any country in the Eastern Caribbean. With no direct flights to
St. Vincent from outside the Caribbean, partly because of the size of the airport, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines continues to appeal to the more dedicated, exclusive tourist.
Since the late 1980s, Sea Breeze Nature Tours has been the pioneer in offering
dolphin watch trips from St. Vincent, as part of regular tours to go snorkeling and
swimming and to visit the Falls of Baleine, on the leeward coast of St. Vincent. A 36-foot
(11 m) sailing sloop or a 21-foot (6.4 m) power boat is available for the tours which depart
from Indian Bay, 5 minutes south of Kingstown. The trips advertise the 'friendly dolphins'
of St. Vincent which are most often spinner and spotted dolphins as well as sometimes
pilot whales and Fraser's dolphins. The trips often encounter a school of resident spinners,
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