Tourism?

Good afternoon everyone! This morning, instead of in class lectures, we went on a field trip. Here is a little background information: If you didn't know, TCI is a British Overseas Territory. In 1966, Queen Elizabeth II had came to South Caicos (for only about 15 minutes), informing the town (and the rest of TCI) that they should switch to tourism instead of using the fishery industry as their main income support. It wasn't for months after her visit that the Belongers took action on this, but eventually Provideciales had become the hit spot for visitors. Basically, South Caicos had remained using fisheries for quite some time and planned on slowly moving into tourism. Today we went on a field trip looking at the 2 hotels that have been in the process of being built on the island for quite some time. One of them (which is now under new management and expecting to be up by January) has been under construction for about 20 years! We got to see the buildings and a sample of each of the rooms that were being built (they were not completely finished, but they were beautiful). There is a total of 83 units so far, and they are going to be selling them and having the owners rent them out supposedly. The pent house was HUGE, had a beautiful view, and is running for 1.4 million. Honestly, it is not that bad considering the great view, location, size, and accommodations (but what do I know about money? LOL). The other hotel was not as pretty, but they have a lot more rooms. There is about 500 units so far, and they are planning on adding another 500 soon. This hotel has been under construction for about 13 years, but most of it has been built within the last 3. I'm kind of concerned for both hotels because South Caicos isn't really vacation material. The visitors would most likely not want to leave the hotel, because the town does not have that much to offer. They are both waiting for the small airport here to expand anyway, so maybe by then the town will have done some renovations as well. But, I honestly doubt it. Here are a few pictures from the hotels:

Left and right view of the first hotel (still in the works).

 The Corner Suite of the first hotel!

Pent House! :)

Pent House!  

Me really high up (with no railing) outside the Pent House LOL.

 Second hotel!

 Another part of second hotel.

Outside view of the second hotel, very crystal blue waters!

After we got back it was lunch time and then we had another snorkel fish ID session. The snorkel session was a lot of fun today. We went all the way around a small reef that sticks out of the middle of the ocean and saw a ton of pretty fish. I was actually able to identify more than half of them, YAY! :) Some of them look so similar though, it is pretty hard. When our snorkel was almost over a large school of squid swam right in front of us! I chased after them and got so close I could have touched them if I wanted to. They are so adorable, and have really huge eyes! Then, right below me was a young stingray! It was eating off of the sandy bottom, which was really cool to witness. And then...I looked to my right again to see if the squid were still there and a barracuda was staring me down! It was one cool thing after another :) 

When we got back, a group of us got together and played a few games of volley ball. We get really into it haha, it's so hilarious! I'm hoping I get really good by the end of my trip! Dinner came around shortly after, and now I'm doing some homework. I'm trying to hurry and get it done (not that writing this is helping LOL), because my roommate and I are going to watch a movie, Tangled! :) If you haven't seen it yet, you should, because it is a really cute movie! Well, I need to go be productive now, have a good night everyone!