By Lavern Clarke, Staff Reporter 
A tourist tries on a Rasta tam with woolen dread locks. - File
JAMAICA'S TOURISM sector has haemorrhaged thousands of jobs within the last year, as the industry struggles to optimise its earnings from the weak world travel market.
According to president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association Josef Forstmayr, some 7,000 to 8,000 jobs have been eliminated. This is despite efforts to contain the cuts to under 10 per cent of year ago employment levels when the tourist industry accounted for some 50,000 direct jobs.
"The statistics don't exist," Forstmayr told Wednesday Business, noting that his take on the situation might well be challenged. "Nobody really knows the figures, but I don't think I am far out."
He adds however, that if tourism begins to grow again, then new jobs would be created instantly.
New jobs are being created, but not in sufficient numbers to replace those lost. According to Jampro's figures, the trade promotion agency is projecting that 1,960 new jobs will emerge from several tourist projects by 2003.
The JHTA president's estimate would put the job losses at about 14-16 per cent, a figure that incorporates the job rationings and staff cuts that feature, he said, among the strategies implemented by properties as they struggle to balance declining revenues from discountings and smaller visitor share, by cutting back on operational costs.
Last year, as the market reacted to the September 11 and the July/West Kingston events, the hotel sector saw an estimated 15-20 per cent fall-off in winter occupancy, according to the JHTA head. Jamaica Tourist Board figures indicate a 13 per cent decline, translating into earnings dropping by as much as 35 per cent, Forstmayr said.
For the period January-April 2001, visitor arrivals were recorded at 484,164; in the following winter period, it was 420,996.
But barring any major world event, like the United States declaring war on Iraq, the industry anticipates that it will do better business in the upcoming four-month winter season which begins December 15 based on responses to current promotional efforts.
According Forstmayr, the hotel sector could recoup half of what it lost last winter with programmes like Celebrate Jamaica 40 now underway to stimulate forward bookings.
"The programme has created a certain awareness and energy in the marketplace, which tells us that we should have a better winter than last year," he said Tuesday.
The "price driven" promotion in which several properties are offering 40 per cent discounts to particular segments of their market in a play on the island's 40 years of independence, runs to January. It incorporates those hotels that have "a history of aggressive marketing and work strongly with tour operators," said the JHTA president.
Other promotions are being run in conjunction with the JTB and the airlines. Forstmayr said the packaged promotions serve to provide the industry with "traction", allowing hoteliers the opportunity to pitch the rooms not included in the discount packages to potential vacationers at better prices.
He said no more than about 5 per cent of the total room count within the properties participating in the Jamaica 40 promotion are being sold under the programme.
The JTB anticipates that Jamaica will end calendar 2002 with at best a 1.6 per cent decline in performance. Their latest figures already show an 11 per cent fall off in stopover arrivals, the sector that brings in most of the earnings, with six-month figures from January-June recording 634,000 guests, compared to 709,000 in the six-month period for the year prior.
