Chief Tourism Development Officer in the Ministry of Tourism, Nicole Alleyne, intimated this today while addressing a stakeholders’ breakfast meeting at Hilton Barbados.

During her presentation on the topic: Promoting Sustainable Tourism with the Nominated Site, she outlined the benefits that would accrue in attaining such a designation.

“Barbados is one of those destinations in which most tourists aspire to visit, and achieving a World Heritage status would increase the island’s popularity. Additionally, Barbados’ marketing worth would be enhanced, which would ultimately lead to increased revenue,” Alleyne surmised.

She added that the development of the Tourism Master Plan 2012-2021, ongoing cultural tourism projects such as the Barbados-Carolina Connection and the UNESCO nomination were crucial elements in the sustainable development and management of the island’s tourism product.

In light of this, she urged stakeholders to get involved in the planning and action activities leading up to and during the nomination process.

“Involving stakeholders in the planning and action activities is a demonstration of garnering support for the project. It also represents a sustainable means of financing for site restoration, maintenance and the provision of fiscal incentives for cultural tourism initiatives.”

Meanwhile, Chief Town Planner, Mark Cummins, in his presentation entitled: Planning Regulations and Legislation and the role of Stakeholders in the Management Plan, pointed out that once a building had been nominated for its heritage significance there was no need for it to undergo a major transformation.

He implored architects to keep some aspects of the original building design in tact when drawing their plans.

“We are not asking architects to design old buildings… What we are saying … is that we need you to design nice buildings by borrowing from the existing design and using your skills to add the contemporary flair,” Cummins added. (Barbados Today)

On average, males’ earnings surpass females by between 14 per cent and 27 per cent, and there is even a difference among those with the same age and education reveals, with the men earning 25 per cent more.

That’s the conclusion of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) examination of gender earnings gaps in Barbados and Jamaica released last month.

The assessment, which the IDB said was based on data from the Barbados Statistical Service’s Continuous Labour Force Sample Survey for 2004. The Barbados Statistical service conducts the CLFSS on a quarterly basis.

According to the document, Gender Earnings Gaps in the Caribbean: Evidence from Barbados and Jamaica, in Barbados females’ educational achievement surpasses that of males, as 27.8 per cent of females have reached the tertiary level while only 22.6 per cent of males have done so.

But it added “when looking at average earnings per educational level, males earn more than females at all levels”.

“It is also interesting to see that average earnings for females with none, primary and secondary educational achievements are statistically similar. Among females, there are only notorious increases in earnings when they reach the tertiary level. For males the situation is different as earnings among secondary graduates are higher than earnings among those with none or primary education; moreover, earnings among tertiary graduates are even higher than among those with secondary achievement,” the report concluded.

“The presence of children and also other wage earners in the household is higher among females than among males. The differences in earnings, however, show different patterns. The earnings premium linked to children living in the household is higher for males than for females. The earnings premium linked to the presence of other wage earner at home is nonexistent for males and negative for females.”

“That is, females who have the sole responsibility of income generation at home tend to have higher earnings that those who have the support of a partner or a different person generating income with them.”

It was pointed out that the majority of workers in Barbados were private and public sector employees (82 per cent of males and 92 per cent of females) and as it stood now in Barbados being an employer was a male-dominated category, which it said was typical of most labour markets.

The report added, though, that what was uncommon was the fact that self-employment in Barbados was also male dominated, something that was “in sharp contrast with the rest of the developing world where this is a female-dominated category”.

Another observation made was that in Barbados while the highest earning males were the employers, public sector employment was the segment in the labour markets “that pays the most for females”.

“The highest-paid occupational group consists of professionals, which has important gender gaps comprising eight per cent of males and 14 per cent of females. The economic sectors of finance, insurance, real estate, business services and community, social and personal services have higher shares of female workers with respect to males (55 per cent of females versus 43 per cent of males), with important gender gaps in the business sectors and almost no gaps among social workers,” the IDB study noted.

“An economic sector with notorious gender differences in participation is construction, as it employs 18 percent of male workers and only one per cent of females. It is interesting to note, however, that the few females working in this show earning that are on average higher than those of males (although the table does not show statistical significance of the differences in earnings).”

“Regarding experience, males have higher representation in the segments with more experience. About 38 per cent of males show 11 years of experience or more, while 30 per cent of females report having similar experience. It is clear that earnings increase monotonically with experience for both females and males.” (SC) (Barbados Today)

This, according to trade unionist Sir Roy Trotman define the recent layoffs at car dealers McEnearney Quality Inc. (MQI).

Speaking at a press conference at the Barbados Workers Union’s Solidarity House headquarters, he stated: “MQI was one of the original signatories to there being any social partnership, and it has been one in the models in the idea of the sharing that there was through the partnership.

“The people who ran the company before were loyal and committed to the Barbados way of doing business and to advancing the interests of all Bajans rather than just a privileged few…”

Media reports on Tuesday indicated the Wildey, St. Michael-based dealership would be laying off up to 20 workers.

Today, Assistant General Secretary of the BWU, Clifford Mayers told the press the number was reduced to 11 and as a result of pressure from the BWU, those who were laid off were told to report for duty on Wednesday.

Mayers added that MQI’s management blamed monthly losses in income - up to $400,000 per month - for the layoffs, despite having an increased market share in the Barbadian market.

Sir Roy revealed MQI’s management did not discuss its intention to lay off staff with the BWU, adding: “The closest they came to informing anybody [of the layoffs] was when they made a threat that unless my colleagues who were negotiating with them would accept a position they put on the table, that then they would take such an action.”

He explained the threat related to MQI’s unwillingness to pay overtime to workers who are paid by the hour, preferring to only pay overtime to those paid by the week.

“Something would have to be wrong with that kind of approach, and it speaks again to a set of people who don’t quite understand how we deal in business and our concept of what is just and what is fair,” Sir Roy asserted.

Additionally, the trade union revealed the posts of the laid-off workers were replaced once they had left.

“When … my colleagues arrived on the work site they saw other people doing the same work that other people were laid off from.

“According to the laws of Barbados, if you have made people redundant you cannot under three years engage anybody to do that same work… Yet a well-established Barbadian company, or a used-to-be Barbadian company, has now taken a position that is very un-Barbadian, and is contrary to all sense of decency and fair play in our country.”

Sir Roy described the move as illegal, stating the Minister of Labour must first be made aware of the company’s intention to lay off staff, which is followed by a presentation to the head of the social partnership to justify it. (Barbados Today)

Acting Deputy Chief Environmental Officer, Austin Greaves said: “There is an increased demand for the vector control resources to reduce what we call the endemicity of dengue fever … Dengue is now a standard on our landscape, so that annually we can expect dengue cases to occur in our country. By cooperating with the officers as they execute their mandate the public is actually seeking to reduce significantly the problem associated with dengue fever and of course, with leptospirosis also,” he said.

He added that they were also enhancing their surveillance of tyres coming into the island in an attempt to ensure that no vectors were being imported as well.

“Vector control officers have to visit particularly the ports of entry, inspect those tyres that are brought in for our vehicles to make sure that we are not importing cases or importing the dreaded mosquito vector, the aedes aegypti mosquito.”

The upsurge in underground tanks, he added was another area that was demanding the attention of officers to monitor and inspect for the dreaded mosquito.

He told Barbados TODAY that the inspections were joint efforts, and while they could definitely use more staff, at present they were able to do the job with those allotted.

“We have over 200 officers in all in Barbados, but of course not all are deployed to the public domain because some work in specialised areas. We can always do with more staff, but the way we are dealing with it, we are able to handle the situation at present.”

The deputy chief noted that the demand was one of the reasons they were intent on pressing on with their pledge to train 10,000 to 20,000 persons in the public about vectors, so as to have a better educated population that could handle some of the challenges being experienced.

“There are so many complaints that come into the various health departments and of course, particularly to the Vector Control Unit that sometimes they become overwhelming and the response cannot be as quick always as we would like them to be, because we have to attend to them and seek to bring them to a resolution.

“We urge you to keep making your calls, our officers are on the ball, but in many instances because of the overwhelming number of complaints coming in you are not going to be services as quickly as you would like but we will do everything to ensure that your complaints are attended to,” said Greaves.

He added that the unit’s officers had numerous jobs, including reducing the mortality as a result of vector diseases, reducing the economic loss incurred from such vectors, education awareness among other duties. (Barbados Today)

Barbados TODAY has learnt that Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy is part of a high-powered regional delegation journeying to the UK between Monday and Wednesday next week to lobby against the imposition of the tax from November, one month before the traditionally strong winter tourist season starts.

While there the officials will meeting with representatives from Britain’s young coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron. They will also hold discussions with airline bosses, many of whom have been supported of the region’s efforts to get an ease from APD.

Meetings will also be held with members of several other organisations, including the British Air Transport Association, major tour operators, Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA), the Caribbean Council, Caribbean Diaspora representatives and the British Caribbean All Party Parliamentary Group.

Reports said the Caribbean group, while aiming to put pressure on officials to change the tax structure for the benefit of the Caribbean, which was now disadvantaged because of its long distance from the UK, expected to get a more sympathetic ear than they did with the previous administration led by Gordon Brown.

The group also includes chairman of the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organisation, Antigua and Barbuda’s Minister of Tourism, Civil Aviation and Culture, John Maginley; Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett; Grenada’s Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Glynis Roberts; St. Kitts & Nevis’ Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Senator Richard Skerritt; and St. Lucia’s Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Senator Allen Chastanet. CTO Secretary-General Hugh Riley is also making the trip to put the region’s case.

In an update on the trip released late this afternoon the CTO said the purpose of the visit by the Caribbean was essentially to “intensify its lobby for a fairer passenger tax system in the UK”.

It said at their meeting with the travel industry and Parliamentary bodies the delegation “the Caribbean delegation will be lobbying for a fairer alternative to the current APD system, which currently taxes flights from Britain to the Caribbean more heavily than travel to Hawaii, and is set to rise for the second time in a year within next two months”.

The CTO said the ministers “will be lobbying for their region, officially the most tourism-dependent in the world (14.5 per cent of the region’s GDP and for some islands over 70 per cent) to potentially be moved into the same band as the USA and Bermuda, or for the APD system to be replaced with a fairer structure”.

Riley said he was hopeful about the trip and expected the Caribbean to put its case strongly and convincingly.

“We feel that the size of the delegation which is coming to the UK on September 6 underscores the importance that the Caribbean attaches to this issue and the seriousness of our intent to minimise the possible damage that this second set of price increases will bring about,” he said.

In November two years ago the APD was changed into a four-tier band system, categorising destinations according to the distance between London and their capital city. From November this year, the tax on flights to the Caribbean would have risen by up to 94 per cent over two years, meaning that a family of four travelling to the region in premium economy will pay £600 in APD alone. (Barbados Today)