WALK A MILE IN THEIR SHOES and you would detect if the shoes are too tight, too big or need half-soling.
The minister of finance might tread carefully as he deals with Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association officials. You cannot pontificate if you do not understand the parameters with which you are confronted.
How can you say, as reported, that “something is wrong if a hotel need to wait on concessions to improve”. Has the minister not heard the banks saying that their biggest problem is the subserviced facilities on their books attributed to hotels and restaurants? Has he not heard of the need for repairs and cash flow help of the sector? (There is no development bank.)
Is he in another world and not seen the paltry efforts of the Central Bank in calling on CBC for hotels and restaurants to come in for some help? Which Barbados is he living in?
Many have been the criticisms that I have levelled against the all-embracing concessions granted to Sandals. I have said that they have created a lopsided industry. This is further compounded by the Government’s delay in providing similar concessions to the others in the tourism sector. Even so the poor previous seasons have left hotels even more deserving of concessions than Sandals.
Sandals, with its big name, is expected to pull the sector around, but I contend that it cannot do it alone. Even so, there is still a vague notion of how much raw foreign exchange will accrue to the Barbados Government coffers in the near future from the concessions.
Does the minister not realise that the first obligation of Sandals is to pay back the claimed $65 million cost in preparing Sandals’ property?
This cost must be paid back in foreign exchange by the heavy bookings expected; which foreign exchange is not taxed, but remains outside of the grasp of our Government; which foreign exchange any other hotel or restaurant would be destined to make the local banks happy.
You need to walk a mile in the shoes of the hotel. Even if you have to ‘scotch’.
There is a disconnect between the tourism sector and the Government’s ability to grant concessions expeditiously, because the Government wants to collect taxes as it is short of spending money.
There is another saying about a goose, a golden egg and a farmer. Jean de la Fontaine said: “Il crue que dans son corps, elle avait un trésor.” (He believed that in her body there was a treasure). “Il la tua, l’ouvrit, et la trouva semblable a celles dont les œufs ne lui rapportaient rien.” (He killed it, opened it, and found it similar to those whose eggs brought him nothing.)
The Wild Coot would not make so bold as to compare such a farmer to the minister as the minister has sufficient on his plate dealing with the farmers, other head honcho and the impending promised, reverse mortgage legislation. But, the reference is ‘apropos’.
I do not suppose that the Government is aware of this saying that the Wild Coot remembers from when he was 13, it being so esoteric.
The real problem is that while the inclement weather is driving Americans, Canadians and Britons from their homeland, our tourism sector is facing competition from other parts of the world, especially the Caribbean.
Maybe the other countries are offering better value for money. Our sector is fighting to compete because of the Damocles sword over its neck and the Atlas burden on it back in the form of the banking loans.
The Government appears duplicitous in dealing with the hotel sector, and the minister has to take a step backward and endeavour to understand the plight of the participants made more acute juxtaposed against what is considered a playing field that seems to have been trammelled by a front-end loader. Our minister should ask what security is tied up with the current loans; what shackles exist and what leeway is available.
This is now almost a year since we have seen the reduction in the world price of oil. In spite of the windfall that was slow to come to Barbadians, we have not seen any reduction in the cost of travel. Do we subsidise airlines?
I do not understand what all the fuss is about when we talk for years of the minibus and ZR vans’ misbehaviour. We the citizens are the ones to blame for every trespass associated with the vans.
We alight, we board wherever and whenever we like. We expect vans to go off route to accommodate us. We really do not want discipline since if we are 100 yards away in a gap, the van should stop and wait to pick us up. So what is the hullabaloo about?
