David Jessop"DID THEY really agree to that?" said my friend, the hotelier, mildly incredulous that Caribbean foreign ministers and their British counterparts had discussed tourism at their recent encounter in Barbados.
That he should be surprised, but pleased, says much about the extent to which the region's most important export industry feels that its concerns are not well addressed when it comes to discussions at the highest policy levels.
The language in the meeting's communiqué was largely innocuous, but significant for being there. A paragraph stated that British and Caribbean ministers recognised the vital importance of the tourist industry to the further economic development of the Caribbean.
They undertook, it said, to carry out actions aimed at expanding the industry and ensuring that an increasing percentage of its earnings remained in the region.
They noted that the 2007 Cricket World Cup would showcase the Caribbean beyond its traditional attractions and urged the industry's repre-sentative bodies to continue to promote tourism on a regional basis.
GAP REMAINS
That my friend should have been taken aback that anything at all relating to the industry was discussed at such a gathering, suggests that a gap remains between industry and Govern-ment, despite tourism's central economic role.
What this seemed to me to point to is a need for a debate at all levels across the region about the implications of the expanding economic role of the industry.
I suggest this because the industry and its fortunes now impact not only on tourism-dependent economies, but all of those within the single market and economy that already rely, or will come to, on tourism's ability to sustain and stimulate regional economic growth.
Such a debate should not be about service and servitude, or whether the industry's fortunes are fickle. What is needed is a far-seeing look over the horizon at the broader implications of what an ever-greater reliance on a continuing flow of visitors will mean for the region.
It should focus on core issues. These ought to include a consideration of the eventual limits to growth in the region's tourism product; how the ultimate size of the industry relates to the environment; the impact that global warming may have on the industry; and, what steps need to be taken on a region-wide basis to defend the economic value of the industry.
POLICY PARADOXES
In the Caribbean and in Europe, most of the key challenges posed by tourism dependency scarcely figure in speeches, thinking or policy papers other than in the most general of terms.
As matters now stand, tourism presents the region with many policy paradoxes.
Governments want foreign investment in tourism. This means for the most part they want externally-financed construction and management of hotels.
Yet, in promoting this, some nations such as Jamaica are shifting the balance from a position where the majority of rooms are locally owned to one where they will be foreign owned.
While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this, it sits uneasily with the frequently expressed but not clearly thought through belief that the region needs to do more to retain tourism revenue.
Put another way, foreign investment has value as long as there is a clear policy for the indigenous small hotel sector and a broader and holistic tourism policy.
That is to say one that determines when new developments are agreed, and how such investments can be better integrated so as to ensure inputs are sourced locally or regionally.
This means the industry should not just be seen as being about hotels, cruise ships or airports. Rather, the role of each should be seen as facilitating an experience, providing employ-ment and creating demand for the vast range of services and inputs that the industry needs.
A broader vision would see the industry as an economic facilitator driving development across the economy. That is to say, as a vehicle that generates domestic and inter-regional investment, enabling the retention of tourism dollars in the economy in a systematic way.
This requires levels of strategic thinking and planning that at present seem to be absent. In an ideal world any new tourism investment ought to be seen in the context of the demand it will create for food, energy, water, transport, attractions, restaurants and saleable services.
Negative consequences including the possibility that too great an influx of visitors could destroy or radically alter the nature of host nations should also be of concern.
FISCAL ASPECTS
Beyond this, the growing significance in national finances of the fiscal aspects of tourism also requires greater thought.
As matters stand, most govern-ments see hotels and their visitors as a heaven-sent opportunity to broaden their national tax base at a time when public services are costing ever more to deliver and other sources of revenue are falling.
However, the reality is that taxation beyond a certain point will cause the industry to lose its competitive position and contract.
There are more than enough studies internationally although none as yet for the Caribbean that show that too high a tax burden results in a fall in income to government as a sector loses its competitiveness.
SECURITY CONCERNS
Security issues also present an unresolved dilemma when it comes to tourism. For the most part, Governments and the industry would like to sweep aside the growing number of violent incidents across the region affecting visitors.
This is not a sustainable position. If the travel advisories put out in North America and Europe are to be moderated, it requires better policing for visitors and residents alike and for Governments and their diplomatic representatives to be proactive and well briefed on tourism as a sector.
What has yet to be accepted across the region is that everything that affects the success or failure of the tourism industry is now a matter that requires serious policy time.
This means ministers of agriculture, fisheries, health, finance, central bank governors, police superintendents and prime ministers all need to be involved with the industry. So, too, do those in government in nations beyond the Caribbean that have an interest in the region's future.
In all of this, the industry is beginning to show the way, but needs to do much more.
The leadership of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation and the Caribbean Hotel Association are working together but they still have to convince their respective constituencies that these are the issues on which they must increasingly focus minds.
A Caribbean without tourism, for even a month, would be a region in economic free fall.
David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org
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