Luxury Villas
the Villas are located you start to feel the essence of this resort lifestyle that comes with ownership. All villas are designed to owner’s own tastes and the villa staff takes impeccable care of the homes and grounds. Integrating the residence and gardens is innovatively fashioned into the landscape; optimizing the views that we all want to see, the sea. The government has designated this as a Tourism area, which means that homeowners are allowed to rent their homes through Calabash to Tourists and the homeowners can only stay in their own villa for up to 12 weeks a year. The homeowners understand that and Garbutt adds “they’ve got to be part of the Tourism Development, and they are.” Marketing for the Villas has been relatively easy, people actually contact Garbutt directly and “I think that I’ve turned down more people that want to buy because it goes back to the basis of the philosophy. They’ve got to believe in Grenada, and be here long term. The owners that are here, have been very substantial entities for investing in Grenada, and are responsible for employing quite a lot of people, added to that they’re my neighbours, as my family home was the first one built on Amber Belair Drive and was a show house for a while.” Marketing the whole entity, daughter Adele heads up the U.K. office in London. Calabash has representatives around the world, tour operators, travel agents, and social media. Mr. Garbutt is pleased with the results of their Facebook page via Guests and Fans responses and believes firmly there is a future in apps on phones as well. Per annum spend into the local economy Fruits & Vegetables $175,000 Egg & Poultry $52,000 Local Meat $21,000 Local Fish $171,000 Electricity $650,000 That’s over a million dollars a year directly spent in Grenada as a result of Calabash. Added to this there are substantial amounts into the economy via staff wages, NIS payments and taxes. Tourism’s Future Mr. Garbutt relays statistics from the Grenadian Government’s budget presented in 2012. “Grenada’s Tourism contribution from foreign exchange is 44.81%. If the Tourism sector was promoted well, what would happen is that Agriculture, which brings in 7.82%, would expand hugely. It is right that we get people back to the land, the farmers that we work with are just marvelous. So if the Government of the day gets Tourism up to say 50%, then Agriculture is going to increase and maybe even double what it is at present. We need to invest in Tourism, and I believe all of our Governments past and present understand this. Their difficulty is, when you have a budget; Health, Education and the country’s Infrastructure are also very high priorities. Forward planning This is another part of the Garbutt family philosophy, “I work on the basis that I try not to depend on anyone or any one utility for anything,” Mr. Garbutt shared why having a back up to these systems is essential to keep both hotel and villas operating smoothly. Electricity: Grenlec is the sole provider to the island. Solution: Have several standby generators. Water: Nawasa is the sole pipe borne water provider. Solution: Install desalination plant and a well. Fire Stations: St. Georges is closest. What if they don’t come quickly? Solution: Obtain ample water pumps and lots of hoses that can be moved easily and pump water from swimming pools. Garbutt expands “We’ve trained our people in fire fighting and that has worked to our advantage, a stray ships flare ignited the hillside during the dry season sometime ago, and we were able to extinguish the fire ourselves using our own firefighting equipment and using water from one of our swimming pools. If you think about making peoples holiday comfortable, there is no room for a systems error.” The property that contains Calabash & and The Villas are truly special on the island, and no one knows that better than the man that had the vision Leo Garbutt. “27 acres is quite a bit of responsibility for an individual family. However I continue to strive to ensure we have sufficient means behind us to develop something that already is substantial to something even greater. The economic climate has got to be correct for that. So the ultimate goal is to have something which is very, very special in Grenada.” And that is exactly what they’ve done. www.businessgrenada.com
The Garbutt Family
134