For the first few days of her reign, the newly elected president of the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association perhaps concluded that she had joined a battle and was undergoing a baptism of fire.
Perhaps if many of our policymakers took the effort to better understand the tourism industry, they would have been more guarded with what I thought were in some cases rather unfair comments.
Tourism is a lot more, of course, than about a bunch of hoteliers, but often it is those same people who sacrifice freely enormous amounts of otherwise quality and productive time with their families and businesses while endeavouring to make a positive difference.
Two years of attending endless meetings, attempting to juggle all the vested interests and egos and so often without the resources that other entities seemingly take for granted.
And they do this without all the perks, benefits and salaries others receive, including politicians, who in some cases can retire at 50 years of age with a taxpayer pension for life.
Sadly, most of the contentious remarks played out in Parliament and the media could have been entirely avoided with better communication, and if the ruling party is seriously considering the possibility of re-election, they may wish to address this issue.
Like any trade association, the BHTA is there to represent its members who contribute significant annual subscription fees – which, in a time of eroded profits, inflation apparently out of control and other escalating operational costs, have to be justified like any other expense.
I have no doubt many in the industry consider that “we” as a destination are now in crisis. You only have to do a little price comparison on the Internet to see the amazingly high level of discounting going on in most of our markets, which some concede is the only practical way of keeping the doors open.
While the $5 million additional funds granted to the national marketing agency in the recent budget is welcome, frankly it is a drop in the ocean and arguably, too little too late. Again, reflecting the abysmal level of information dissemination between the private and public sector, the majority of players have no idea how these monies will be spent, or if they simply will evaporate and be used to pay all yet unfulfilled financial obligations.
In my short time on the BTA board, return on investment (ROI) was a frequently used phrase, but this seems to have gone out the window in more recent times. The current level of anticipated return seems dismally low; $5 million carefully and creatively deployed should produce, in my humble opinion, $100 million in earned revenue.
As to the merits of yet another small and medium-sized hotel refurbishment fund. Unless access to these funds is simplified and available to all our registered properties, the danger is that this new proposed equity scheme will become just more smoke and mirrors.
If you just address our small hotels, of which we have around 120 providing roughly 2 500 rooms, that’s an average of $20 000 per room to upgrade before allowing for public areas like swimming pools, landscaping and so on.
Not surprisingly then, the overall amount of $50 million is being questioned.
And finally the moratorium for two periods on land taxes. Very welcome, but why now, when the damage has already be done with the last 50 per cent increase?
