Portia raps lack of funding for tourism

MINISTER OF Tourism and Sport, Portia Simpson Miller, has criticised the lack of financial support from the budget for her ministry's tourism development programme.

In her maiden speech on Tuesday on the portfolio which she took over earlier this year, she said that her 2000/2001 tourism programme was only part of what was necessary to help Jamaica achieve its full potential as a tourist destination.

"We are not competing with the Caribbean. We are competing with the world, including countries with seemingly unlimited resources for product development, marketing and promotion. It will be a long, uphill road if we are not able to find the resources to develop and diversify our product, to secure a larger share of our existing markets, open new markets and increase the 'spend' of visitors," she warned.

The Minister announced that, for example, in the case of Japan, it could no longer be "business as usual" and a decision had been taken to close down the tourism office there effective yesterday.

She said that in the context of its limited resources, the Ministry had to constantly review programmes and policies to ensure that it gets the best returns. As part of this review, it had determined that the returns from the Japan market did not justify the cost.

She said that a full tourism programme, if adequately funded, would have allowed her Ministry to create a significant impact on product improvement and marketing, resulting in substantial increases in arrivals, earnings and employment.

Giving some examples, Mrs. Simpson Miller said:

Despite the Ministry's best efforts, it has been unable to develop or even sustain its market in Europe, advance a programme to get the adequate airlift, support tour operators or advertise the destination.

What is being done in North America is not enough to grow the business in the way that is possible, although the Jamaica Tourist Board and JAMVAC has a programme which was workable and could increase business.

There are growing opportunities to attract visitors from various ethnic backgrounds and interests and some work was already done among such groups. The benefit of the programme comes from the fact that each part of Jamaica offers its own unique vacation experience. Although opportunities were identified to promote each of the local resorts under the Resorts Marketing Programme, it remains largely unfunded.

"All of these form a very ambitious programme developed by the Jamaica Tourist Board, the Tourism Product Development Company, Jamaica Reservation Service and Jamaica Vacations Limited, we do not have the required funding to bring all the pieces together," she lamented.

She said that tourism was one of the most market driven industries in the world and relied heavily on promotion as a competitive tool. The growth of between 2 per cent and 3 per cent in recent years was not enough to maintain, much less improve, occupancy levels in hotels, hence the complaints from sections of the sector about poor occupancy levels event in the light of constant increase in arrivals.

Given the extra rooms on stream each year, it was necessary to increase arrivals to between 8 per cent and 10 per cent per annum to achieve average occupancy levels of about 65 per cent in the short term.

Within an appropriate level of budgetary support, there could be sufficient market development to put the destination on track to achieve growth in he arrivals in excess of six per cent per annum up to 2010, she said.

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