No slowdown in spending among the wealthy on this Bahamian island

The word is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce seen the marina of this tiny piece of island (5 square miles) for vacation was met with surprise from tourists who gathered to observe the gorgeous sunset at the bar, and dismay from locals who anxious that their little piece of paradise was turning into just one other Saint Bart.

“I heard he lives down the street,” a girl sitting alone at the bar told us. She happily sipped perfectly chilled prosecco from a glass of champagne.

The locals didn’t seem impressed.

“The two percent and the ultra-rich will come,” one salesperson told us, noting that business has been brisk among the wealthier Americans, Canadians and Britons who form the backbone of the economy here.

Maybe too energetically.

“We have 20 billionaires on this island alone. The traffic is becoming unbearable,” she said, taking a look at me suspiciously.

I straightened up and tried to appear to be a two percenter, but I wasn’t sure what they looked like.

Road traffic? What move? I looked out the window of her shop. Most people got around in golf carts. Harbor Island, with a population of just 1,800, and its only town, Dunmore Town, make Saint Barts (pop. 11,000) appear to be midtown Manhattan.

She explained that the woman herself had moved to Eleuthera, a 10-minute water taxi ride away, where apparently the hoi polloi rarely come.

All of which begs the query: Why on earth would anyone, let alone Taylor Swift and a bunch of billionaires, come to this tiny speck?

Why are there so many huge yachts in Valentines Marina?

Harbor Island is barely an island. It’s a distant island, in this case Eleuthera, about 60 miles northeast of Nassau. Can’t fly in. You should fly to Eleuthera, take a taxi to the pier just a few miles away and take a water taxi to Harbor Island.

This inaccessibility is seemingly a significant advantage for the small group of people that can fit on the island and afford to pay the high prices (St. Barts style).

The operative term is “tiny.” The largest hotel has 41 rooms; a dozen other hotels have less. In total, there can’t be greater than 250 hotel rooms on the entire island. It is unlikely that you’re going to see a store of a giant global chain here. I doubt the infrastructure could support a big hotel. Not surprisingly, there appears to be a brisk business for renting several houses on the island.

Walk around the city for just a few days and you will see why a small group of travelers keep coming back and appear very uninterested in expanding it:

• This is one among the most wonderful beaches in the Caribbean, and even in the world. It is indeed pinkish, because of the decaying shells of microscopic sea creatures. It stays white, tons of of meters from the shore, no seaweed, no rocks, no anything, just blue water. It is flat and the sand is so compact which you could walk on it without sinking. It’s so compact that individuals ride horses the entire three-mile stretch.
• How is it possible that an island with several hundred guests can host so many great restaurants? There are local places like Queen Conch and Ma Ruby, which serve delicious Caribbean food and are famous for his or her “Cheeseburger in Paradise” (served on a brioche bun and apparently earned the praise of Jimmy Buffett). You can enjoy great Italian food at Aquapazza, and classic Caribbean meat and fish dishes might be enjoyed at Latitude 25 at the Coral Sands Hotel, at the elegant Dunmore Hotel, or at Malcolm 51 at the elegant Pink Sands Resort, which incorporates all cottages, the Rock House or the Landing, i.e. for Valentine’s day. And still cannot get reservations for multiple nights.
• You would think that an island with so many wealthy visitors and residents could be stuffed with gigantic McMansions and multi-acre complexes. They’re definitely here. The captain of the boat we rented for a day trip joked that “millionaires live on the north side, billionaires live on the south side, and everyone else lives in between.” Bill Gates, Ron Perlman, Mickey Drexler, Barry Diller, Diane von Furstenberg and Wayne Huizenga are said to have homes here. But Dunmore Town is filled with modest, one- and two-story houses that sparkle with colours: blues, yellows, reds, a veritable explosion of pastels and purple mornings all over the place.
• Walk around the neighborhood on Sunday and you will hear singing. It is a spiritual country: 90% belong to some religious denomination, although the majority are Protestants (Baptists and Anglicans), with Roman Catholics and a small variety of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox and others. We attended Lighthouse Church of God to listen to Pastor Samuel Higgs and guitarist Rocky Sanders and a heavenly group of singers fill the house with old skool gospel music. Mick Jagger and Lenny Kravitz also dropped by. Higgs and Sanders played for clubs in Europe before returning to the island.
• Bahamians are famous for his or her warmth and kindness, and on a small island like this you will discover them in abundance. Just say “Good morning” to anyone and they’ll stop and say, “Good morning! How are you?” They will smile and mean it.

While locals may complain about the traffic and wealthy people, don’t expect the Bahamian government to shut the doors. Tourism generates 50% of the country’s GDP and employs nearly 70% of the workforce. This money injection makes its per capita income the third highest in the Western Hemisphere (behind the United States and Canada).

Luxury travel could also be booming, but overall, travel to the Caribbean stays popular. According to the latest Caribbean Tourism Organization report published by the Caribbean Journal, arrivals increased by 14.3% last 12 months.

And while the locals may complain, any small island or city would give anything to achieve the intense loyalty such places appear to generate.

The woman at the bar in Valentines said she has been coming here for 20 years and spends her honeymoon here. She flew to Eleuthera on a non-public plane together with her husband (who owned automotive dealerships in the Midwest), her children, and their friends. They had rented a ship to spend just a few weeks in the Bahamas and would head south to even smaller islands.

Why was she sitting alone at the bar?

Her family, she added with a smile, went out searching for Taylor Swift.