sept-2016

48 September 2016 - Business View Caribbean

Business View Caribbean - September 2016 49

move up our ADR, our Average Daily Rate, as quickly

as we wanted to as an industry, but we’ve been seeing

it move up four to six points each year over the last two

years. Despite improved performance, one third of the

hotels reported an anticipated loss in 2015. That’s not

insignificant, but at the height of the Recession over

half of them were reporting that. So we’ve seen some

change, that way.

“90 percent of the hotels characterized the 2015 tour-

ism industry as ‘strong to moderate.’ And the outlook

for 2016 remains positive with some concerns. The

outlook wasn’t as strong as 2015, but it’s still strong.

We asked a few questions about those concerns and

received comments that categorized a couple of areas

– high operating costs, taxation pressures, air lift chal-

lenges, and, to a lesser extent, perceptions of crime

and safety in the region.”

You mentioned “air lift challenges.” Are you alluding

to the fact that air travel to the islands is still too

expensive for many people?

We’ve not engaged

some our key peo-

ple, including the

airline stakehold-

ers, as effectively

in recent years. So,

part of the man-

date we’ve given

ourselves is to

reach out to them

much more effec-

tively and we’re do-

ing that, right now.

We’ve done some

research on price

elasticity and at one point we lose market share be-

cause of the high cost of airfare. So, one of our goals

around advocacy is to reduce the high cost of airfare.

One of the major contributors to the high airfare costs

to the Caribbean are the high tax levels. Taxes and fees

have gone up incredibly in the last several years. The

U.S. taxes and fees have pretty much held their own,

but, for example, if you buy a ticket to the Bahamas,

which is a quick hop from Florida, over 51 percent of

the cost of your ticket are taxes and fees. And that

translates into most jurisdictions in the Caribbean –

they can be quite high. So, when you factor that in, our

argument has been that that adds to the increased

costs of supply. The airlines’ cost have actually held

their own or gone down a bit, but it’s the taxes and

fees that are the big bugaboo, here. So, we started an

outreach, working with our Caribbean Tourist Organi-

zation, to look at ways we can help to reduce the cost

of travel to the region. It’s an advocacy initiative that’s

part of a three-year plan. We won’t get it done over-

night, but we have done a lot of groundwork, already;

we’ve built some collaborative efforts around it both

with the airline industry and with the Caribbean Tour-

ism Organization to help address, not only the costs,

but also the ease of travel, as well. It should be much

easier than it is.

To sum up, what are some of the salient points that

you would like our readers to take away from an ar-

ticle about the CHTA?

“The core of the message is that in the Caribbean, tour-

ism is everyone’s business. And if people understand

better the connection of how it affects everything –

the socioeconomic aspect of everything in almost all

the destinations in the Caribbean – they can see how

we can better connect the dots. We need much more

friendly policies and collaborative initiatives to protect

and enhance the industry. It’s the single quickest way

to generate employment and tax revenue for the gov-

ernments of the Caribbean. Bumping up our arrivals

and our occupancies a few points has tremendous

value; the tourist dollar has a multiplier effect that

touches just about every aspect of life. And the Ca-

ribbean Hotel and Tourist Association is an active and

engaging partner, working at the local and regional lev-

els to help market, develop, enhance, and protect the

CHTA New Executive Team (left to right): Emil Lee, President, CHTA; Vanessa Ledesma, COO,

CHTA; Frank Comito, CEO, CHTA; Matt Cooper, CMO, CHTA.