Women’s Entrepreneurship Day: Entrepreneurship Studies Open World of Possibilities to Caribbean Businesswoman

Learning the ins and outs of life as an entrepreneur is changing the mindset and the future prospects of a young businesswoman studying at Algonquin College online from her home on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin.

For the past eight years, Puran, 26, has been operating a car rental business in Saint Maarten, the Dutch portion of the island 300 km east of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea. Tourism is the lifeblood of the 87 square-kilometre island, which has been divided between the Dutch and the French since 1648.

“Tourism is really the only business we have,” Puran says, and in good years it is a very good business indeed. About one million people visit the island annually in peak times, enough to keep Puran and her many competitors busy.

But the economy of Saint Martin has suffered massively since 2017, when it was one of the Caribbean islands devastated by Hurricane Irma. The Category 5 storm destroyed roughly one-third of the buildings on the Dutch side and damaged 90 per cent of structures. Seventy per cent of Puran’s uninsured inventory was damaged or destroyed by the storm.

The island was almost fully recovered by the end of 2019, she says: “People were starting to come back and bring their friends.” Just when it looked as if her business was about to thrive again, world tourism suddenly collapsed with the declaration of the global COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.

What to do? “I said to myself, OK, the pandemic is here, I had literally nothing to do, no work. I decided to enroll with Algonquin College.”

There were local options at the island’s university but she believed the quality of the education she would receive in the College’s two-year Business Management and Entrepreneurship program would be more valuable. She hasn’t regretted that decision for a moment: she says the program has already opened her eyes to a new way of looking at her business and ensuring her family a prosperous future.

“So far, I find the most valuable thing I’ve learned is about being entrepreneurial,” Puran says. “I now understand the mindset of an entrepreneur is totally different from a business owner, and I realized for myself that I had a business owner’s mindset. Chris Doré’s class has been very powerful for me because it’s taught me about the value of being entrepreneurial rather than having a laid-back style.”

She explains that she is learning the value of taking calculated risks as she moves forward with her enterprise. “Honestly, I’m no risk-taker. I’ve always been a little scared of taking chances. But I’m learning all this information that allows you to assess your future chances in a very thorough way. I never had this knowledge before about being an entrepreneur, about marketing – about so many things I didn’t know I needed to succeed. It has really opened my eyes.”

Tourists are now returning to the Caribbean by the thousands. On the day we speak, the view from the port webcam on Saint Martin shows two gigantic cruise ships disgorging travellers for a sunny afternoon in town or on the beach under the breeze-tossed palm trees.

Tourists mean renewed business for Puran, who says she is thinking constantly now about the possibility of expanding her operation. The island of Saint Kitts, she notes is just 15 minutes away from Saint Martin. “What I’m learning now is teaching me how I can brand my business and find ways to branch off to another island. If I can do it, that would be amazing. Just amazing.”