With Cuba having earned almost a billion dollars more than Jamaica from tourism last year, tourism industry officials are not forecasting any major fallout for the local industry, should the United States lift its 47-year-old trade embargo against the communist island, but leading industry player, John Issa, believes we will have to play catchup with our neighbour in the areas of education and housing for tourism workers.

"In the longer term, Cuba will be a formidable competitor because it not only has the natural resources - the beaches and the land, it has an educated population and a very good (housing) infrastructure," Issa said in an interview with the Financial Gleaner.

Shortcomings in Jamaica

"The shortcomings in Jamaica with respect to education and public discipline and (housing) infrastructure are things that we need to correct regardless of whether Cuba becomes a competitor in the US market. These are things that will do harm in our potential for tourism."

Issa notes that major improvement is required in the housing stock in the tourism belt, particularly in the parishes of St Ann, Trelawny, St James and Westmoreland to address the problem of squatting.

Critical too, for Jamaica, says Issa, who also operates 19 resort with three located in Cuba, the standard and the quality of Jamaica's education system must be improved.

"We are competing against Cuba, where everybody is literate, very well educated and disciplined," he pointed out.

" A lot of the people we interview (for jobs in Jamaica) are not employable because of their level of literacy. It is very hard to find engineers and technical personnel," according to Issa, who will be opening two new hotels in Panama and Brazil later this year.

Adult literacy level

Cuba has an adult literacy level of 99.8 per cent compared to Jamaica's 79.9 per cent. Meanwhile, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its 2006 Human Development Report, ranks Cuba 50th among 180 countries in the Human Development Index, while Jamaica comes in at 104.

Despite Cuba's advantage, the SuperClubs chairman is not foreseeing that island's opening up as being detrimental to Jamaica's tourism industry.

"I wouldn't be fearful about the opening of Cuba from a competitive point of view with respect to the US market, because the hotel rooms being used by US travellers to Cuba are now occupied by Europeans and Canadians."

These sentiments are shared by Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association president, Wayne Cummings.

"They are going to have to do a lot of homework. They have a way to go before they develop their capacities in Cuba," Cummings said.

But the Government is not leaving anything to chance, according to tourism minister, Edmund Bartlett. The state, he said, was already preparing the industry for Cuba's inevitable opening up by diversifying Jamaica's tourism markets and increasing the number of airlifts into the island.

Already, he disclosed, a memorandum of understanding is to be signed, possibly within a month, with the Cubans for multi-destination marketing and joint airlift arrangements.

The International Monetary Fund projects an increase of between two and 11 per cent in stopover visitor arrivals for Cuba, if the US embargo is lifted.

Jamaica and Cuba are reporting increased tourist numbers since the start of 2009, bucking the trend of declines in other destinations.

Cuba has reported record visitor arrivals in 2008 and more than US$2.7 billion in revenue, representing a 13.5 per cent increase over the previous year. Some 2.35 million foreigners visited the island last year, 9.3 per cent more than in 2007, according to figures posted by the Cuban National Office of Statistics.

Jamaica's earning from the industry last year was just under US$2 billion from 1.7 million visitors.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com