All during the last administration, the country was told that the reason why Barbados was doing poorly economically was because of the big, bad recession out there.
And when it seemed like there was some hope for a rebound in our declining tourism arrivals, the Stuart government was ready to take the credit: “Yes, visitor arrivals hit rock bottom in 2009, but surely were it not for the efforts of this country’s Minister of Tourism and his officials we would not have seen the recovery in numbers in 2010 or 2011,” said Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler last June in his Budget speech (Page 10).
But what would happen if the scapegoat we call – separately or combined – the “global, worldwide, international downturn, recession and slowdown” did not affect global tourism? And that, in fact, despite its so-called continued existence, the number of people travelling in the world had actually risen?
And, one top of that good news, Caribbean tourism had bounced back at a faster clip than the world average?
Sounds too good to be true, but it happened last year. In mid-February the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) reported that “last year, the Caribbean welcomed nearly 25 million tourists. That’s 5.4 per cent more than in 2011 and the largest number of stayover visitors in five years.”
The CTO added: “This rate of growth outpaced the rest of the world, which saw arrivals increase by four per cent.”
Say what? Increased? I thought we were experiencing the effects of that worldwide downturn thing.
Nope. According to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation: “The region as a whole has regained ground lost in the heat of the global economic depression in 2008-09.”
By region, the CTO means Caribbean region. That’s what the ‘C’ stands for in its name.
That must really be good news for us here in Barbados. I mean, in 2011 we saw tourism arrivals go up by nearly seven per cent over 2010, so how did we do last year, 2012?
According to the Central Bank of Barbados in its review of the economy for 2012, “Output and foreign exchange from tourism contracted, with a 6.2 per cent decline in long-stay arrivals and an increase of only 4.3 per cent in the average length of stay.”
We declined, while the rest of the region grew, except for a few other countries.
Besides Barbados, the other Caribbean countries not experiencing growth in tourist arrivals last year were Anguilla, Bermuda, Grenada, St Lucia, Martinique and Montserrat. All of the other 18 member destinations of the CTO showed increases in longstay visitors, the organisation reported.
In its report, the Barbados Central Bank said the closure of Almond Resorts and the eight per cent hike in the Britain’s Air Passenger Duty, plus the decrease in flights out of both Britain and the United States, were the reasons for the island’s poor showing.
Provisional figures put the fall-off in Barbados tourist arrivals at around five percent, from 567 000 at the end of 2011 to 532 000 at the end of December last year. That, ironically is the number we achieved in 2010.
In short, last year Barbados erased completely the gains it had made in tourism arrivals the previous year. Since Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy was to be praised when we had the increase, is he to be criticised now for the decrease?
Really. I seem to have taken leave of my senses for a moment. Of course not.
Here are the reasons put forward by the Central Bank for the fall-off in arrivals in its review of the economy for 2012, at page 4: “Tourism value-added contracted by an estimated 3.5 percent. There were reductions of 8.8 per cent and 9.0 per cent in American and British visitors, respectively.
“The closure of the Almond Resorts represented an estimated loss, on average, of about one-fifth of visitors preferring an all-inclusive vacation.”
It continued: “This coupled with the UK’s Air Passenger Duty, which increased by over 8 percent and the decrease in the number of flights out of US and UK by two major carriers, were the main contributing factors to this outturn. In addition, the cessation of flights by Redjet earlier in the year contributed to the reduction in regional visitors.”
Blame it on the airlines. Blame it on Almond. Blame it on REDjet. Blame it on the APD. Blame it on the boogie. But don’t ever even think of blaming it on the DLP administration or its hard-working tourism boss.
I am myself “looking to” something, and that is to hear what the second Stuart administration plans to do to turn these numbers around.
According to the CTO, “The World Tourism Organization, the UNWTO, reported that over one billion international tourists travelled the world by the end of the year – 36 million more than in 2011.”
So, whatever it does, I hope the new Stuart administration ceases to repeat the old dogma of “let’s blame it on the global recession.” It no longer exists for the worldwide tourism industry.
I must say I find charming the idea of blaming it on the boogie. But I think they had better boogie on out of that one.
• Pat Hoyos is a long-standing journalist and publisher of the Broad Street Journal.
