When a Jamaican company won the bid to operate Harrison’s Cave, the news raised many an eyebrow and some people expressed fears that Barbados was “selling” an important part of its birthright.

On the contrary, the magnificent St Thomas underground wonder that is Barbados’ premier attraction has not been sold.

Instead, Marc Melville, chief executive officer of Chukka Caribbean Adventures, the new operators, said the company was motivated to bid to manage Harrison’s Cave when it saw the “tremendous potential for unlocking and enhancing the value of this natural asset”.

“Our strategy is to locate unique nature adventure assets like a great river, a great waterfall, even a historical site and build around it with daily activities that we know people want. It is the DNA of what we do,” Melville said.

In its plans to develop the renamed Harrison’s Cave Eco Adventure Park, Chukka will be adding a dry slide, a free-swinging bridge across the gully, a zipline, a freefall tower, a challenge course and an aviary among other features intended to enhance the attraction.

“Chukka is a nature adventure operator. We develop great natural assets by enhancing the activity profile around the

asset and giving customers more value at the same site,” Melville said, as he noted Harrison’s Cave was “a marquee attraction” for Barbados.

“You have this great underground cavern cave system and the Government, with a lot of foresight, invested in developing it and making it unique. It is the jewel in the crown but it is a single-focus activity.

Where the nature venture business is heading is that people want to continue to go back to experience that site. But if it does not evolve, it makes it less attractive for people to want to go back and see it.”

Since Harrison’s Cave was rediscovered by Danish engineer Ole Sorensen with assistance from Barbadian Tony Mason in the 1970s and developed and officially opened to the public in 1981, hundreds of people have taken the tram ride to view the waterfalls, the meandering streams of water, the underground pools of crystal clear water and the spectacle of the natural formations.

However, Melville says that by adding new features, Chukka’s strategy is “to keep the visitation up, increase the yield, and even decrease the footprint of people walking through the Cave to make sure you can protect the basic asset responsible for generating the revenue”.

“The key is to have more and more people going through the location but not necessarily the Cave. We aim to enhance Harrison’s Cave to a place where people who have been there before would want to return. We are trying to create a place where people would want to come and stay and play and we want to build a park to accommodate diversity in age and diversity in people’s likes. In short, we want it to be an eco-park with the cave as the epicentre.”

The Chukka story began when Danny Melville, the Jamaican owner of an Ocho Rios polo field, opened a polo and equestrian centre for locals in 1983 and decided to complement it with an opportunity for tourists to encounter horses. The combination of the scenic ride along a spectacular coast and a thrilling swim on horseback proved to be a launching pad for the company which the senior Melville named Chukka, capturing the spirit of adventure and excitement inherent in the game of polo.

Today, Chukka operates 23 attractions in five territories, with Barbados being the latest to join Jamaica, Belize, the Dominican Republic and Turks and Caicos Islands offering nature adventure activities.

Marc has taken over from his father at the helm of the business and with the operation of the eco adventure park here, he is excited about the prospects for Barbados and the island’s tourism sector.

“Once the borders reopen on both sides, we feel there is going to be a dramatic increase in arrivals and spend once we are coming out of the pandemic,” Melville said, adding: “Your domestic market is always a major chunk of what makes the business successful.”

Barbadian communities near the cave such as Welchman Hall and Allendale also stand to benefit from the new operation through the Chukka Foundation, which is being set up for the purpose of community outreach to ensure that the neighbouring communities are included and derive financial and other benefits from the operation.

Melville said a local committee would be “working together in monthly meetings to devise plans for the involvement of the surrounding communities”.

It comprises Member of Parliament for St Thomas Cynthia Forde and two people from her office; Andrea Franklin, country manager of Chukka Barbados, the local company charged with managing Harrison’s Cave Eco Adventure Park and two representatives from Chukka’s corporate office.

Artists will also be afforded the opportunity to make and sell their craft in what Melville described as a “stitch-by-stitch programme designed to help micro entrepreneurs get into tourism by assisting them with doing craft items sponsored by Chukka”.

Melville said construction of the new attractions at the park would begin next month, and he anticipated the work would be completed over the next 12 months.