Vendors of ‘tent city’ have at least 30 more days at their present location at Wickham’s Cay after which they would be relocated to the revitalized Crafts Alive Market. Photo: VINO

The Ministry of Communications and Works was hoping to have the Crafts Alive Market re-opened in October but from all indications work has not been completed. A meeting for prospective Crafts Alive vendors will be held today, Tuesday October 30, 2012 where it is expected that a new timeline as well as the status of the project would be made known. Photo: VINO

The meeting will now be held at the Noel Lloyd Positive Action Movement Park at 7:00PM.

Meanwhile, Vendors of ‘tent city’ have at least 30 more days at their present location at Wickham’s Cay after which they would be relocated to the revitalized Crafts Alive Market. Minister for Communications and Works, Hon. Mark Vanterpool had initially disclosed that the Ministry was hoping to have the Crafts Alive Market re-opened in October but from all indications work has not been completed.

“The next thirty days or so we are going to remove our lovely ‘tent city’ and move them to the lovely Craft Alive Village where we have a much better presentation...,” Hon. Vanterpool told Virgin Islands News Online.

Prior to that Hon. Vanterpool had promised Captain Peter Philpott of the MV Queen Victoria yesterday October 29, 2012 that when the cruise ship returns to the Virgin Islands the port should be a much more enhanced area by that time.

The Virgin Islands yesterday welcomed the luxurious vessel to its port for the first time and hopes the cruise ship will make the Territory a regular port of call in the Caribbean. Hon. Vanterpool represented Premier Dr. The Honourable D. Orlando Smith in welcoming the vessel to the island and presented a beautiful plaque on behalf of Government to Mr Philpott. He also spoke to the captain briefly about Governments plans to extend the cruise ship pier and to develop the port in the not so distant future.

Meanwhile, it is expected that a new timeline as well as the status of the project would be made known when the Minister hosts a meeting for prospective Crafts Alive vendors today, Tuesday October 30, 2012.

The revitalisation the Crafts Alive Village is a component of Government’s cruise tourism programme.

“There are a number of other things we are doing to ensure that cruise tourism continues but overall the Premier is very interested in developing tourism at the higher level as we have been doing...We consider cruise tourism very important as a mix with the rest of our tourism products which we do emphasise on such as the charter yachts tourism and hotels but cruise tourism is the mix that we want to ensure continues and we are continuing to emphasis a number of things here as you know we are going to extend the pier to handle bigger ships and we are going to do some upland development...,” Hon. Vanterpool reiterated.