THE EDITOR, Sir:

I NOTE that the director of tourism/chairman of Jamaica Tourist Board, John Lynch, has replied to me, in your paper of September 29. While I do not wish to prolong this exchange, I must indicate that once again he has missed the point.

He has also again attributed to me positions that I had not taken. For the record, I want to make clear again that I am not questioning the validity of the stopover arrival figures, nor am I disputing the massive dis-counting or reasons for it, quite the contrary.

I have been simply saying that:

Jamaica's growth rate in stopover arrivals is flat.

The growth in rooms has outstripped our growth in stopover arrivals, so occupancy levels must be falling.

There is heavy discounting of hotel rates.

People are hurting

Simple mathematics will, therefore, tell you that revenue earnings to the tourism sector must be falling significantly. People in the industry are hurting, and this will be exacerbated as we are now in the slow season.

Why is this point so important? It is important because the minister has been making overly optimistic statements about the arrival figures ignoring completely the reality of declining revenues that members of the sector are feeling.

When stakeholders have difficulties with creditors, or are taking hard decisions, they are asked, "why is it necessary, if the minister says everything is honky dory".

This is why I have been cautioning him to be careful and responsible in his pronouncements, a position shared by many in the tourism family.

Disregarding facts

I hope that Mr Lynch and my friend, the minister, are taking this advice seriously and not casting it aside as they did when I told them early last year to beware of the pending recession. The reply at that time was that the type of visitor who comes to Jamaica would not be affected so that there was no need to worry. "Those who have ears to hear ... ."

Backward step

By the way, having checked, I am now reasserting that contrary to Mr Lynch's response, the preliminary stopover arrival figures are no longer made available to JTB board members and stakeholders who were previously provided with this data - a backward step.

I am, etc.,

WYKEHAM MCNEILL

Opposition spokesmanon tourism