Now that the roof on Festival Place has been repaired, Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe said the plan is to move ahead with the refurbishment of the welcome center, and depending on how far the Ministry of Tourism wishes to go, it could cost "millions". The roof problems have existed at Festival Place for years, and grew so bad that they required the relocation of staff and vendors. Now that the roof has been fixed, Wilchcombe said, the ministry plans to move ahead with what he called "the internal stuff".

"Now we can go back inside," he said.

He told Guardian Business the plans for refurbishment are not yet complete.

"It depends on the extent you want to go, on how much you want to spend and put into it. If we want to change the entire design, the present design, it will cost millions of dollars. We'll have to make a decision on that subsequently, but that decision will end up at Cabinet," he said. "Right now I'm looking at the facility as it exists. We might just move back in there as it is until such time as we do have the wherewithal to go and call for big expansion.

"The key right now is to get the people back into the place and to be able to provide the environment that we want for the visitor when they arrive. As we speak, we hope over the next several weeks we'll see a process where people will be going back in."

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