-Market 'Feel'  ­PMA

Things here are pretty optimistic and no doubt that a "PMA",  Positive Mental Attitude, is a very important factor. The world economy and the political situation dampened the enthusiasm that was prevalent here for the past decade, but overall most people here are pretty upbeat. It is pretty hard not to be actually. The sand is still white, water is still aqua blue, the weather is warm and sunny, the people are still as friendly as ever and economically the island will do well this coming year. The losses that were experienced due to the economic and political situation this year will fade. You only need to look at the expansion of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship
dock and the opening, on November 20th this year, of the new Carnival Cruise Line port to see how life can spring right back to normal.

The mid-island "Pristine Bay" Development will have a Pete Dye designed 18 hole golf course in full operation by mid 2010, (9 holes completed by years end- '09). The developers of this project have two successful projects under their belt (the latest is the Antigua Country Club in Guatemala). They will have a company called Lancaster Group handling their property management. Lancaster is a high-end, boutique Hotel Management company. (Both mentioned businesses can be found online). They have 350+ full time people working there daily on construction and golf course maintenance.

Carnival Cruise lines will open their new $67 million Port mid island this November and Royal Caribbean is in the process of investing $30 million on the expansion of the Coxen Hole Location. The Carnival project started construction AFTER last Fall's "economic"  crisis. By next season they are projecting up to 6,000 cruise visitors a day seasonally. Carnival Corp. is the largest cruise company in the world running seven different cruise ship lines, one of which is Carnival. Their new ships have a cost that exceeds One Billion dollars with over $250 million in "kitchen ware" alone.

Basically the above means hundreds of thousands of visitors who, like many that come here, will fall in love with the place. Then you have the Pristine Bay Development with the new Black Pearl Dye Design Gold Course. No layoffs there. They are full speed ahead with over 350 people working there daily. You can swing your clubs there by the end of the year and the week before
Easter will be the Grand Opening Celebration. I know that wherever it is you are now, some of this may sound like pretty small potatoes. For the sleepy little island of Roatan, however, it is news that economically is all positive for the people on the island.

Questions? Feel free to write and ask-

larry-schl@roatan-realestate.com