Crime a major worry for tourism officials

**Tuff Gong** · 06-08-2008, 02:30 AM

Re: Crime a major worry for tourism officials

700 Jamaicans Murdered 4.5 per day 200 in May 1 every 4 Hrs

<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wkqAwQyKD1k"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wkqAwQyKD1k" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>

**evanovitch** · 06-08-2008, 12:41 PM

The View from Europe

.
Around the world the biggest airlines are reducing services, increasing fares, levying surcharges and abandoning destinations as the cost of fuel continues to rise.
This suggests that for a geographically fragmented and tourism dependent region such as the Caribbean, the potential for a new economic crisis is large.

Over the last twelve months the costs of aviation fuel has risen by ninety per cent and is still increasing.

As a consequence, the airlines on which the region depends for access to the wider world and to feed visitors into the region’s all important tourism industry are in the process of making cuts that will see by the year end a dramatic fall in services to and through the region.

Airlift dependence

Unlike many tourist destinations in Europe or North America where the majority of visitors arrive by road and by rail, the Caribbean depends on those who come by air to provide ninety five per cent of the GDP that is earned by the Caribbean tourism sector (estimated at US$40 billion in 2008 by the World Travel and Tourism Council).

This is in contrast to those who come by sea who leave almost all of what they spend with the cruise ships on which they travel rather than the destinations they visit.

Put another way this means that most Caribbean nations depend on there being high frequency of well priced air lift to sustain the economic viability of their economies.

From media reports it is already clear that major US carriers will significantly reduce both their direct flights into the region from the United States and ‘restructure’ feeder services through points such as San Juan.

According to industry sources those destinations likely to be hardest hit as the year proceeds will be those served by American such as the Dominican Republic, the Dutch Antilles, and a number of Eastern Caribbean nations served by American Eagle’s San Juan hub as this is replaced by less frequent direct services from the US mainland.

Severe consequences

They cite as reasons for the choice of cuts to these and possibly other regional points as increased fuel costs coupled with the high levels of operating cost and taxes levied in the countries concerned.

The tourism industry depends on airlift 

So severe could this process be that one senior industry executive believes that much of the last twenty years spent by one airline in building a Caribbean route network will have been wasted.

This in itself is bad news, but what is more alarming is that a consequence of cutting routes and reducing the supply of seats, the cost of air fares on remaining services, including those provided by low cost carriers, is expected to rise to cover operating costs and to retain the overall viability of the service.

If this is the case it will be happening at just at the moment when the region has still not addressed the consequences of greater global competition from other destinations, a better considered and integrated approach to the role of regional carriers and the high costs of inter-island travel. 

Caribbean versus global tourism

In 2007 visitor arrivals by air into the Caribbean at 22.55m showed an increase of 1.49 per cent over 2006 while cruise visitors at 19.5m were two per cent higher than in 2006.

In 2007 the US market grew by just under one per cent, Canada by 12.5 per cent; Europe by 2.5 per cent while all other arrivals, a figure which includes inter-regional travel, declined by 4 per cent.

Given the fact that the Caribbean is still acknowledged to be one of the world’s premier tourism destinations these figures contrast starkly with average global tourism growth in 2007 of seven per cent. 

To make matters worse there are signs in the domestic North American and European market and elsewhere that huge sums are being put into marketing and an extensive range of discounts introduced to keep consumers at home. 

According to St Lucia’s Tourism and Aviation Minister, Allen Chastenet, who is also Chairman of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation, time is running out for the industry in the region if it does not find ways to address cuts in airlift, the economic downturn in the US and growing competition from other warm water destinations.

His views are echoed by St Kitts’ Tourism Minister, Ricky Skeritt who believes that all Caribbean destinations are at risk from this combination of factors.

Preventive measures

As this is being written, Caribbean tourism and aviation ministers are meeting in Antigua in an emergency session aimed at identifying ways to ameliorate the worst effects of the impending crisis.

The intention is that their recommendations will be taken forward to an industry summit with Caribbean leaders to be held in Washington in mid-June and then to a one day meeting during the Caribbean Heads of Government meeting to be held in Antigua in early July.

Many of the solutions being considered concentrate on ways in which Government might reduce costs to the airlines and increase regional competitiveness.

They focus on issues such as a reduction in landing fees, reform of the region’s aviation standards, reducing the region’s multiple air traffic control systems and navigation fees so that there is a single charge akin that in the European Union.

They also focus on the ever growing range of passenger taxes and airport fees and surcharges levied by governments on air travellers – but not on cruise ship passengers - that are often hidden in ticket prices.

However introduction of changes in these areas may not be easy or rapid. Such decisions are the prerogative of individual states.

Moreover, they fall to hard pressed finance ministers struggling to balance budgets distorted by rising food and energy prices, subsidies for the poorest, the high cost of social provision and before long, tariff reductions as a result of new trade agreements.

Another proposed response which in theory ought to be easier given the huge economic importance of tourism to the regional economy is the establishment of a regional marketing campaign of the type that many large nations in the Far East for example are now running internationally on cable television, the internet and in more traditional media.

In 1993 and 2001, the years when agreement could be reached on the creation of an adequate fund financed by both industry and governments, the value of this approach in lifting tourism arrivals was more than demonstrated.

Further options include the encouragement of the inter-Caribbean market by adopting models used elsewhere that might waive departure and other air taxes for Caribbean nationals as well as the creation of a costless visa system for bona fide visitors travelling within an agreed single Caribbean space.

For years now the Caribbean tourism industry has been arguing for its concerns to have a much higher place on ther regional and international political agenda.

It finally achieved agreement on this when Caribbean Heads of Government met in Nassau earlier this year.

The response to the present crisis facing the industry and the Caribbean economy will be the first clear indication of how seriously the region’s political leadership take this commitment.

David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [email protected]
Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org

LOCAL LINKS
If AA cuts back will American tourists too?
27 May, 2008 | News
SEE ALSO
Hurricane 2008
BBC Caribbean News in Brief
Is football the new cricket?
Hair today - gone tomorrow?

**Tuff Gong** · 06-08-2008, 06:35 PM

Re: The View from Europe

Sunday, June 08, 2008
Ex-gang enforcer wins global education award

It took five years of sacrifice. Relocating himself, together with a shipping container, back from London to his native Palmer’s Cross, Clarendon.

Digital artist mervin Jarman’s big vision was to use computers to reach troubled youths, to give them a means of expressing themselves and pick up some valuable skills and Heart/NTA qualifications that could help earn them employment.

Today, the ‘Container Project’ has won international support from UNESCO, and last month Jarman travelled to Sweden to accept a trophy for the project as a winner of the 2008 Stockholm Challenge Award for excellence in community development.

The key to Jarman’s success is that he himself went through the same transition as the youths he’s trying to reach — he’s a school dropout reaching out to other school dropouts. The youths, he said, have fully embraced the project which has harnessed their creative talents by teaching them computer skills and raising their self-esteem.

“Right from the start in 2003 they got themselves involved. All they asked for was food and drink, and they’d still be there hammering at 2:00 am, 3:00 am in the morning, and we haven’t stopped since!”

A former gang enforcer in London, Jarman’s own life turned around one day, after realising that criminality really wasn’t paying for him.

“I wasn’t prepared to do what it took to go through the ranks in the street. And I got depressed to the point where I wanted to come back to Jamaica. But a neighbour, a Jamaican friend, saw me looking depressed sitting outside against a wall and suggested, ‘why don’t you try college’,” Jarman told the Sunday Observer.

From that point he never looked back, throwing himself into studying digital animation and becoming a founding member of the Mongrel Collective, a group of Londonbased artists who became wellknown for their projects, which included stunts such as building a Web search engine that targeted people searching for racist websites. Using the browser only returned one result: black faces popping up on their computer screen.

Mongrel also involved themselves with educational projects, which took Jarman one step closer to home.

“I was travelling around the world and doing these workshops for people, and I wasn’t doing this for Jamaica and I had realised all along that it wasn’t me that was special; it was my Jamaican background that interested people,” he said.

So he decided to give back by establishing the project — originally envisioned as a unit that would travel around Jamaica — and in 1999 shipped the 60-foot freight container here, with the assistance of the United Kingdom Arts Council.

“But nothing happened, so I decided if I wanted it to be done, I’d better do it myself. So, I chucked in my own money and put in my savings, and I got some of my friends from the UK to come down and we got a whole bunch of old computers and got them in order.

The project is supported by Cable & Wireless which provides free Internet access and training, among other services.

It’s cared for and valued by residents, which became apparent after a few years, said Jarman. Ironically, it was this appreciation that prevented the container from its original brief, to be a mobile project.

Apparently the change among the youths had been so pronounced that even community elders came to appreciate the computer facility, with one of their number visiting Jarman to plead: “You can’t leave!”

404 - Jamaica Observer

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/blog/template_permalink.asp?id=205#205

**bee_bop** · 06-08-2008, 10:16 PM

Re: The View from Europe

Tourism maybe a high income earner, but I see it as very fragile, and its impact on the wider society is marginalised by the fact that most Jamaicans would not be able to be employed at their true skill level, but would rather be subordinate to others. The proposed 'elegant strip', in MoBay, will probably be a locale that some Jamaicans may never fully enjoy, but will have to keep their distance.
If fuel prices keep escalating as they are, tourism is likely to be inhibited in its growth, if not crippled. Worse yet, if an act of terrorism takes place thousands of miles away!!!
Other than the above, tourism is okay, however, it cannot be Jamaica's economic mainstay.

**Tuff Gong** · 06-13-2008, 04:00 PM

Re: The View from Europe

Crime not affecting tourism 
Friday, 13 June 2008 
Some international travel agents citing Jamaica's worsening crime problem, have been warning their clients not to hire rental cars but to instead take organised tours and taxis.

Industry figures said despite the bloodshed, the number of British holiday makers to the island rose last year by 6% to 185,000.

The article in the British Telegraph quotes Jamaican High Commissioner to London Burchell Whiteman as stated that there was no violence directed towards tourists.

Most tourists to Jamaica stay in all-inclusive compounds and they are now being advised to take precautions if they go outside.

The Foreign Office has made little change to the safety section of its travel advice on Jamaica in the past year.

It advised against walking or using buses at night and said walking alone on deserted beaches even in daylight hours is a risk.

404 Not Found

http://www.radiojamaica.com/content/view/8996/26/

Crime a major worry for tourism officials

Crime a major worry for tourism officials

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

ads