How long will it be before the boating and tourism industry returns to the hardest-hit islands in the Caribbean after Hurricanes Irma and Maria blew through, destroying hotels, marinas, charter fleets and houses? No one knows, particularly the people who live and work there. But they do know that they don’t have a way to make a living. The New York Times reports that residents are leaving St. Martin, “because their jobs are no more.” “Right now, the livelihood of tourism is in a coma,” said the sales manager of a luxury hotel in Anguilla. A waitress at a hotel in Road Town, Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, said she didn’t know how she would survive. “Right now we don’t have any work for waitresses.”
The BVI were particularly hard hit. They actually suffered a one-two punch. First, Irma caused an enormous amount of destruction, and then Maria destroyed Puerto Rico, which was going to serve as the staging point for supplies, boats and people to rebuild from Irma. And people in the BVI who lost their homes now have lost their jobs as well. As The Times chart shows, 96 percent of the GDP in the BVI comes from tourism. Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/us/tourism-hurricane-economy-caribbean-islands.html?_r=0
