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Tourism ’should not be heavily subsidised’
AVINASH PERSAUD
BARBADOS must be globally competitive in the world of tourism, and not just standing by and waiting for subsidies.
That’s the view of Professor Avinash Persaud, the featured speaker at the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association’s (BHTA) first quarterly meeting at the Crane Resort yesterday morning.
Before a packed audience at the posh St Philip hotel that included key tourism players such as Hugh Riley, Noel Lynch and Sue Springer, Persaud, speaking on the topic Myths And Realities: Tourism As A Driver Of Economic Growth In Barbados, said that unless things were done differently, tourism could go the same way as the struggling sugar industry.
“I fear that this sector could become like the sugar industry, employing a tiny fraction of employees, remaining closeted and unprofitable, but we have it there as part of our heritage, we have it there as some grand museum,” he said.
Persaud, an economist and chairman of the Four Seasons project, said the flagship tourism industry should not be heavily subsidised.
“The sugar industry was made unprofitable and uncompetitive as a result of extensive closeted support and subsidies.
“Unless our tourism sector can stand on its two feet and be profitable, it will not be part of the future.”
Persaud told hotel and restaurant managers he was concerned that less than 20 per cent of Barbados’ hotel stock was globally competitive and could survive in the long run.
“We need to do some things that will change that projection because I will argue that if we lose the tourism sector, that will actually be even more crippling than losing the sugar industry.
“The sugar industry was never going to profit in the long run in a globally competitive world of special preferences and the large arms of Latin America,” he added.
Persaud said there was much hope for tourism.
“We have in Barbados a world-class tourism product. There are many in this room who know how to manage, operate and develop world-class products.”
He dismissed suggestions that Barbados should be less globally focused and aim for greater domestic development.
“I have heard this talk about doing things ourselves here, rather than being globally competitive, [and that] tourism is servile . . . not something you want to aspire to. Of course, this is all ridiculous nonsense,” he said. (MK) (Nation News)