By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
June 10, 2022
Coverage of the Summit of the Americas 2022
The future of tourism must take into consideration consumer trends changing toward the more ethical consumer. What does this mean? The rise in consumer consciousness affecting how people chose their destinations for travel.
A topic Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Andrew Holness focused on he sought to provide a beacon of light to countries heavily reliant on the tourism sector during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s CEO Summit of the Americas. The conference currently under way in Los Angeles sees leaders from the Caribbean, Latin and North America gather to discuss various topics of regional integrated security, business and trade relations, and policies.
Holness says climate change has already begun to affect travel patterns, as product offerings alter. He added that consumers are now thinking about their monetary value in their consumption decisions, bringing into play ethical values as a greater part in their buyer patterns.
He foresees consumer trends changing and called for a diversification of the product offered, something he sees being critical to any country becoming competitive in the sector. Maintaining its value apart from sun, sand and sea, includes the experiential tourism segment where food, culture, entertainment, and environment begin to play an integral part of the product offerings put out by countries. However, for countries to protect this value, policies must be developed that will incentivize tourism investors to seek diversify their offerings.
He added that the notion held by foreigners that all Caribbean islands might be the same is far from what is true, as Jamaica is pushing its local cultural aspects as a selling point where the people become more involved, thereby adding value to its product offered as a country.
Meanwhile, Holness shared how its ‘Resilient Corridor’ model worked by utilizing special rules that allowed the tourism industry to continue to operate and recover despite its lockdown periods.
He said his government was mindful to take a very proactive approach, engaging the sector and putting in place a program to ensure employees were supported in the tourism sector. The Jamaican PM said despite the sector being reduced to zero with little to no visitor arrivals, his government was still able to keep them employed in tourism to ensure that at the point of recovery, stakeholders were not going to struggle to find workers to return to the industry.
Going forward, he says this provided a stronger approach in having a plan to ensure resilience in the industry from a human resource management point of view, giving credit to stakeholders in the tourism sector in being able to plan and manage the crisis. He says Stronger Coordination Stronger Partnership emerged into what they branded as the ‘Resilient corridor’ with his country leading the way in the region as to how to recover in the midst of COVID crisis.
Holness was sure to cite the role regulatory frameworks and measures played in ensuring the industry could recover.
However, the Jamaican PM said it was not always a bed of roses, as several issues did arise regionally. One being the differing standards set for cruise ship arrivals among varying regions making it challenging for cruise ships to navigate within the region. He said there had to be greater coordination amongst governments in the Caribbean as to how they would treat with crises and working toward a uniform set of rules and regulations to make easier and seamless for its partners to function in tourism.
This he described as lessons well learnt, with governments now at a better place having to work together in coordinating regional efforts if it was to ensure the industry was well supported.
Navigating through supply chain disruptions in maintaining the standard and quality of products their guests have come accustomed to became another challenge. Here, two things coincided, the need for greater linkages between the tourism sector and the rest of the economy particularly agriculture. He said the pandemic made the tourism industry more reliant on the local agri-sector, a lesson that was not only necessary for the pandemic, but how to set targets on the inputs needed locally secured, while serving as a catalyst of local capacity to supply its needs. This brought on how to keep supply chains safe without local redundancy all while continuing to deliver a high quality product.
As to the impact oil prices will have on tourism, Holness says apart from the cost of airfares, it will have a general impact on incomes globally. And while its ripple effect has not been felt yet on his local industry, he anticipates that if it continues much longer, it will begin to trickle down with another recession headed our way, and calls for players in the industry to start to prepare, particularly for the Caribbean, where arrivals by air account for 65 percent.