WESTERN BUREAU:
OUTGOING PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Josef Forstmayr, has called for the removal of restrictions which, he said, were hindering the growth of the tourist industry.
He was speaking at the annual general meeting of the JHTA at the Wyndham Rose Hall Resort and Country Club in Montego Bay over the weekend.
Mr. Forstmayr also announced that he would not be seeking re-election because although he had a good two-year run "it was time for new people and new voices".
The tourism industry has proven to be "most resilient through the many challenges Jamaica and the world has faced," he said, adding that through natural disasters, wars and terrorist attacks "we have been shaken but not stirred."
Mr. Forstmayr said, however, that players in the industry needed to do more than "sustain and maintain".
The Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) is well advanced in its reorganisation of operations for greater efficiency and effectiveness and with the support of the JHTA, they will ensure an improvement over the two per cent annual growth in tourists arrivals that has become the norm over the past decade, the past president said.
"Two per cent is definitely not enough. It can hardly even quantify as growth. But if we are to go beyond it we will have to do something differently. The Government, for instance, must remove the firewalls built around incentives that makes it impossible for genuine investors to take advantage of them."
Mr. Forstmayr criticised what he described as a culture of mistrust, saying that "somehow in Jamaica, we have grown so distrustful of each other we assume everyone is a crook and surround everything with such prohibitive regulations that honest people simply walk away from it, frustrated."
The Tryall Club's general manager said that if one could not trust a hotelier and attractions owner who has invested a lot in plant and people, has operated in Jamaica for a long time and has honoured financial commitments, "then who can you trust?"
Mr. Forstmayr went on to say that in order to stimulate investment, the Government must make incentives that are "simple, accessible and easy to understand. Or else it becomes a frustration and no one benefits. Not the industry, not the Government and certainly not Jamaica."
He also batted for more meaningful integration with Jamaica's Caribbean neighbours. "The region needs to wake up and work together. We continue to pay lip service but not give the attention needed to achieve meaningful integration. Just two weeks away from a CARICOM Summit here in Montego Bay, I would like to remind our leaders that integration does not require you to give up your identity and the whole will be stronger than it's individual parts."
