A LEADER in Barbados’ all-inclusive market has hit out at critics who say these hotels were concentrating important foreign dollars among themselves and preventing tourist spend from filtering through the economy.
Responding to the long-held view that all-inclusives were less valuable to the economy because their guests paid for their meals, accommodation and other costs sometimes long before arriving in the island, hotelier Colin Jordan said the Barbados situation was much different.
Recently, a Jamaican economist charged that thriving tourist arrivals there were not reflected in that country’s economic performance and blamed it on Jamaica’s large all-inclusive market.
But Jordan, who works with the Mango Bay all-inclusive hotel group and is president of the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association (BHTA), said: “Barbados’ tourism product is far different from the Jamaica product.”
All-inclusive visitors to Barbados move around the island much more freely, he said, while in Jamaica, visitors using this type of accommodation had their spending focused more in the hotel and on specific attractions, so their spending was restricted.
According to Jordan, Barbados’ all-inclusive visitors were spending across the board.
“A place like Moon Town in St Lucy gets a significant amount of business from Almond [hotels]. That is a community-based experience and a number of other attractions get business from that hotel group.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that Almond shuttles guests out into places like Bridgetown, Oistins, and these visitors are spending money.
“One of the biggest attractions for our guests at Mango Bay is Friday nights out at Oistins,” he told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY.
Jordan insisted that the contribution of all-inclusive hotels to the island’s economy was significant despite the fact that they represented 20 per cent of total accommodation on the island.
He explained that villas and condominiums, on the other hand, accounted for 30 per cent of the island’s room stock.
“The fact is that it makes more economic sense to have your all-inclusive guests out of their hotels. . . .
All-inclusives really have no interest in keeping guests on the properties 24/7.
“Most of our guests love to go out and see Barbados and in spite of the fact that their meals are paid for, they will buy drinks at shops, go to supermarkets, and many will go to local restaurants. That is how we practise all-inclusive in Barbados,” the BHTA president contended.
The hotelier said while some visitors did not like the all-inclusive concept, there were others – like families and large groups – who liked the certainty of knowing the full cost of their travel.
He said that unlike places such as the Dominican Republic and Mexico, where the safety of guests could not be guaranteed outside the hotels, Barbados has few problems in this area.
Making a case for the trickle-down economic effect of all-inclusives, Jordan said operators of these hotels here sourced their items locally, employed hundreds of Barbadian workers, used local services, and were all located in commercial areas that visitors frequented.
