We built this industry, but who does it truly serve?

The sea breeze carries the sound of speedboats ferrying tourists to resorts, a constant hum that is the soundtrack of our modern lives. We hear these promises about tourism, about pensions and housing for the workers, and a part of us wants to believe. We built the bungalows over the water, we mixed the cocktails, we guided the snorkelers through our reefs. Our hands have shaped this industry from the sand up. Yet, there’s a hollowness that echoes behind the policy numbers. A TGST hike to fund a pension sounds noble, but we’ve heard promises before. The money flows in, but does it flow to our families, to our islands? Or does it just vanish into contracts and offshore accounts? We see the foreign companies, the foreign managers, the foreign ownership. The best views, the best jobs, the real control—it often feels like it exists just beyond our reach, a world we can see from the staff ferry but never truly enter. ‘Bringing real-estate tourism on par with global trends.’ What does that mean for our shores? For the quiet beaches where we used to play as children? We want development, of course we do. Our young people need jobs, our economy needs to grow. But at what cost to our soul? The moratorium on awarding contracts to foreign companies in areas where we have local expertise… that one strikes a chord. It’s an acknowledgment of a quiet betrayal, a recognition that our own skills have been sidelined in our own land. So we read these points, and we feel a flicker of something—not quite hope, but a fierce, protective pride. This is our home. These are our islands. The tourism industry is our sea, and we should be the ones sailing it. The question that lingers, as the sun sets and the resort lights twinkle in the distance, is whether these words will finally build a bridge for us to cross over, or if they are just another mirage on the water.