Pearl Island, another beach day that will be in direct competition with Royal Caribbean International's (RCI) Royal Beach Club, that is planned for the western end of Paradise island, has benefitted greatly from Royal Caribbean passengers, Pearl Island's Managing Partner Peter Rebmann said Thursday, adding that he welcomes the project and expects that Royal Caribbean will only bring more visitors as a result of the beach club. He said he therefore expects to net even more than the 4,000 who already come to his property weekly thanks to RCI.

Rebmann participated in the question and answer segment of RCI's supplemental public consultation meeting on Thursday, and gave a comment on the cruise line and his thoughts on the proposed project.

There are been groups who maintain that RCI's proposed project will cause environmental damage to Paradise Island, while others are concerned that its movement of guests over to its beach club will affect downtown sales, taxi tours and other tours.

However, Rebmann said RCI's intention to use the beach club as a catalyst to bring more cruise visitors to The Bahamas makes sense to him. He explained that much of the business he has gotten at Pearl Island has been RCI cruise guests.

He added that when the cruise business shut down following the pandemic, RCI was the only entity that offered Pearl Island a "few thousand dollars" to help with operations.

"First of all, I want to salute you for the project. I personally think it will bring, as you said, even more tourists to Nassau, to The Bahamas," said Rebmann.

"And at the end, everybody will get a piece of the cake... and I think with the port now, it's big enough that we will be directly impacted from your project. And I just want to give out the message that we are not afraid.

"Royal Caribbean Cruise Line was our first client in 2017. We had 20 employees, we had in the beginning less clients than we had employees on the island.

"And with the growing cruise ship numbers, we now have 3,000 to 4,000 guests a week from you guys [RCI], and we now have 100 employees."

Rebmann said he hopes Pearl Island can get renewable energy tips from Royal Caribbean's buildout. He complained that Pearl Island has had to use generators powered by fossil fuel because neither wind nor solar proved efficient for the island.

"We tried every possibility... we're still on diesel," said Rebmann.

RCI released its supplemental environmental impact assessment (EIA) ahead of the meeting. During the meeting, environmentalists continued to press on with their concerns about the project and posed many questions to RCI's panel.

Many of their questions were similar to those asked and answered in RCI's recently released public consultation report.

The post Royal Beach Club competitor sees benefits of PI project appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

The post Royal Beach Club competitor sees benefits of PI project appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian