Claudia Gardner, Gleaner Writer
NEGRIL, Hanover:
THE NEGRIL Chamber of Commerce (NCoC) has predicted that the upcoming fall tourist season, spanning the beginning of September to mid-December, will be very gloomy for the resort town.
"Business is sufficiently down and we will see some closures for the fall period," Wayne Cummings, president of the NCoC, told The Gleaner yesterday. He said September was always a "very weak" time for tourism because it is back to school everywhere in the world.
"It is no joke thing! It is going to be very reminiscent of post 9/11. This new revitalised hurricane season has seen people ringing and making bookings clearly outside the hurricane season," he added.
Mr. Cummings, who is also the general manager of the Negril Gardens Resort, told The Gleaner that tourism interests in Negril should "start compressing costs, as the town was already experiencing low occupancy, which he said would only get worse.
Despite the expected fall-out in the tourism sector, Mr. Cummings said he was not expecting the impact to be severe. He said he did not expect to see any job cuts, though he believed job rotation during the period was a surety.
USING FACILITIES EFFICIENTLY
Mr. Cummings said, "People are discounting heavily, on one hand, so that has market implications. Those of us who have the ability may use it as a clean-up period. Those of us who can't will be looking at locking down sections of the properties, to make sure they are using their facilities as efficiently as possible."
To mitigate the effects of the dismal season, Mr. Cummings has recommended that hotels and attractions in Negril implement effective environmental management systems (EMS) to reduce costs.
He said, "The first thing you have to do is to look at your consumption patterns, making sure that environmental management systems are in place and engage guests and staff in conservation methodology. Some may want to get radical, re-negotiate some contracts over the period, whether it is entertainment or garbage collection. Everybody has to come on board."
