Barbados’ hoteliers must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and take action for their survival, rather than wait on Government, says veteran hotelier Ralph Taylor.
Taylor gave the advice Wednesday at the fourth quarterly general meeting of the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association (BHTA).
“We are not helping ourselves. We need to be able to cut our costs to be competitive in the global market,” Taylor said.
He was supported by Jon Martineau, another hotelier, who disagreed with claims by a fellow member of the BHTA that Government was not giving sufficient support to the sector.
Saying he had “a real problem with the approach that Government must solve all problems”, Martineau suggested “people have to get up and help themselves” since “Government has no money . . . and people have to chart their own course to success”.
Taylor and Martineau were participating in a panel discussion entitled Tourism Yesterday, Today And Tomorrow, put on during the meeting at Hilton Barbados.
Some panellists complained about high duties on imports and other forms of taxation on the hotel sector.
Hotelier Bernie Weatherhead suggested the BHTA should be lobbying Government for a reduction in the “astronomical duties and taxes” on imports by hotels as he complained that the island was offering “a most tired hotel plant”.
But Taylor argued that hoteliers must find mechanisms to cut expenses before trying to convince Government to reduce taxes.
Responding to the hoteliers’ concerns about taxation after the meeting, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy told the DAILY NATION Government had sought to give some relief to the hotel sector by putting “preferential arrangements” in place through the Tourism Development Act. He disclosed that schedules of the act which listed items eligible for duty-free importation were currently being amended to include other key items.
However, he contended, “The hotel sector enjoys lavish concessions with respect to land tax, VAT . . . . Overall you can’t say nothing has been done.”
Sealy said: “Government does recognize how crucial the sector is and we are prepared to talk to them and offer them support that is necessary within the context of Government’s overall fiscal strategy.”
But he cautioned any action taken had to be “in the context of the fiscal constraint Government has”.
“We still have to have quality roads, a quality police force; we still want to make sure that our educational systems are in place to prepare the workers for the sector,” he said. (GC)
