Among earning less income, vendors say they have difficulty meeting their rent obligations owed to the Castries Constituencies Council.

President of this vending group, Peter ‘Ras Ipa’ Isaac, made a bold call to the powers-that-be to reconsider the rent dues vendors must pay to the CCC as the off-season has left Port Castries, and their pockets, empty.

Tourism Minister Dr Ernest Hilaire, weighing in on the appeal, says a new method of gaining rent should be in order.

The Minister suggests that vendors should only be charged a rental fee for the days when they earn income from ships being in the harbour.

“If you're not making money on the day, I will not charge you. But the days when you are making money, I will charge you. I will charge you per day. So if there are no cruise ships, I don't charge you. But every day there's a cruise ship, if I charge you $20, I can in the first six months make the money for the whole year,” Dr Hilaire explained.

This proposed new fee, however, would be more than the daily fee vendors are currently charged. Hilaire notes that vendors would benefit on the other end if they do not pay rent during the off-season.

The Minister also highlighted that the government would need to work on ensuring that more cruise vessels visit Saint Lucia during the closed season.

“The first thing we have to do is to get more cruise ships in the off season,” he said.

Hilaire notes, however, that it is challenging to get more port calls during the off-season. “Now that's proving to be more and more difficult because a lot of the cruise ships are phasing out the smaller ships and going with larger ships. And some of the smaller ships, which they probably could use during the off-season, send them to other parts of the world.”

The recently-signed GPH agreement promises to redevelop the Vendors’ Arcade at Port Castries to allow more visitors to access vending areas.