Jamaica’s Travel Industry Heavyweights Call on Government to Earmark More Funds

Some of Jamaica’s major tourism players yesterday called on the Government to allocate more money to advertise and promote the country in order to correct a 2.1 percent slide in stopover visitor arrivals since the start of the year which, they project, will worsen in the summer and fall if nothing is done.

Arguing that there are dark clouds on the horizon, Sandals chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart put the figure at $75 to $85 million, adding that heavy marketing was needed to address the expansion of the accommodation sub-sector.

“The forces that have accepted the development must anticipate that you have to escalate the marketing to meet the demand of the additional capacity,” Mr. Stewart said at a luncheon he hosted at the head office of the Observer in Kingston.

Stewart, who is also chairman of the Observer, has been hosting a series of lunches at the newspaper to discuss issues relating to the economy. His reference to additional capacity was in relation to the influx of Spanish hotels on the island which have so far added more than 3,000 rooms.

Godfrey Dyer, past president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), said the success Jamaica experienced last year left the authorities feeling comfortable and as such the country was caught off guard.

“They were expecting this year to be good and as such did not take the necessary precaution,” he said, adding that while the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) has enough money to do routine things, now that the sector is faced with a decline there is not enough money to do the kind of crash advertising that is needed.

The sector, which saw a 13 percent increase last year, has already started to sputter with stopover arrivals from the United States, Jamaica’s major market, dropping 11.9 percent since the start of the year.

The United States passport regime implemented last year, which requires all American citizens arriving home via air to have a passport, coupled with the CARICOM visa regime implemented during the staging of Cricket World Cup and which should be lifted on May 15, also added a further blow to the industry.

Diana McIntyre-Pike, chairman and CEO of Countryside Community Tourism Network in Mandeville, questioned why funds could not be provided from the tourism enhancement fund to finance marketing of the destination.