TRUE TO HIS WORD, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy came, saw and listened to suggestions from social activists, small craftsmen, big hoteliers and university professors at the White Paper Development town hall Meeting at St Lawrence Primary School on Thursday night.
Following on from presentations from facilitators, Dr Janice Cumberbatch and chairman of the Tourism Advisory Committee, Dr Sherma Roberts, Sealy pointed out to the large crowd that his role was to listen to everyone who had an idea as to how to make the Barbados tourist product even better, also noting that not even the well paid tourism consultants had all of the bright ideas.
Well, many bright ideas were put forward from the floor, with the meeting lasting over two and a half hours.
Sports administrator Adrian Donovan opted to open the innings. He declared that as someone from the area he was the ideal person to begin the discussions. Donovan lamented the fact that although St Lawrence made such a significant contribution to the tourism product in Barbados, not enough recognition was given to that tourist belt.
Former Barbados fast bowler Pastor Courtney Selman introduced a new ball, recommending the need for the development of faith-based tourism, with the targeting of many of the big-name evangelists to come to Barbados to spread the word in every sense.
Loreto Duffry-Mayers, who works for the Caribbean Hotel Tourism Association, was passionate about the need for Barbados to get on board with the Blue Flag Programme, through which the international group gives a rating to countries and beaches that evidence a high level of maintenance and ecology.
“We cannot compete with other similar destinations without cleaning up our act,” Duffry-Mayers said.
Hugh Riley of the Caribbean Tourism Organization agreed with many of the other contributors that there was a need to involve the youth, as well as to get the entire country to buy into the tourism products while recognizing its value to the country. He also added that Barbados needed to use the information which was supplied by visitors to profile the tourists in order to find out why they visited and to target other tourists with similar qualities.
Former Barbados Tourism Authority senior executive Calvin Hope expressed similar sentiments while saying that the natural hospitality of Barbadians made our product second to none.
Hope, however, indicated that more up to date research needed to be done and that an organization or unit should be set up to deal with the marketing and researching of the Barbados product.
Hotelier Chris McHale lamented the extent of noise pollution in Barbados and expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that the effort to set up a business in Barbados was handicapped by the various Government agencies. Concerning the latter, he outlined a case where he had to “waste” two years waiting for Town and Country Planning to deal with a matter for him.
The outspoken Adrian Loveridge of Peach & Quiet encapsulated one of the running themes of the night by underscoring the need for Barbados to make greater use of online social networks and the Internet generally to promote the country as an ideal destination. (KB)
