Gordon Robinson | Enhanced duplication?

The only thing Haemorrhoid loved more than complaining about “piles and piles” of files on his desk was telling shaggy dog tales.

Some of his 1970s efforts would be politically incorrect today. One such, told after Dessie threatened the Dunce for playing opponents’ card, was his story of the Chinese man named Wong who dies and arrives in Hell. When his name is called at orientation another Chinese man also puts up his hand.

To cut a very long story short, they’re sent to Hell’s reincarnation services to straighten out the mix up. They’re told they’ll be sent back to Earth as one wight (look it up) until the matter can be sorted out.

“Both of us? As one wight?” the Chinese man asks.

“Yes” replies the Reincarnation Services Director, “remember you’re in the system as a single person until we figure it out. But no problem it’s Halloween. We’ll send you up top for a week; you’ll have the time of your afterlife haunting the living. When you get back we’ll have it all sorted out.”

The Director makes a call. The Chinese guys listening realise there’s a problem when they hear “What do you mean you can’t? You won’t make an exception? Alright, I see. Alright, yes, goodbye.”

The Director hangs up and tells the Chinese men the plan is off.

“Why?” they ask testily.

“It’s company policy. Two Wongs can’t make a wight.”

At this juncture, Haemorrhoid would collapse on the floor in a fit of giggles before pointing out that duplication is never a good thing.

I recalled Haemorrhoid’s tall tale while listening to Jamaica’s tourism talking horse, Mr. Ed, announcing “this is the biggest and best winter [tourist] season Jamaica has ever had.”

How exactly, Mr. Ed?

Mr. Ed estimated 1.18 million visitors came (January to March 2023) or 94.4 per cent above 2022’s pandemic stricken first quarter. He said that represented US$1.15 billion in earnings or 46.4 per cent above 2022’s first quarter.

Allrighty then! But, er, um, please sir, exactly who welcomed these visitors and who earned these incredible sums? Tackled on that issue on morning radio, Mr. Ed estimated 40 per cent of the Tourism dollar stays in Jamaica.

Only 40 per cent? Why?

Circa 1973/74 I was employed in the Jamaica Tourist Board’s (JTB) Planning, Research and Statistics Department as a lowly factotum. At that time a department survey established 33 per cent of the tourist dollar remained in Jamaica. An off-the-cuff estimate of seven per cent increase in 50 years isn’t progress. If all the new taxes imposed on visitors since then are included in that 40 per cent, the reality is even more alarming.

So, for average Jamaicans, tourism benefits haven’t been enhanced. Yet we retain an expensive agency euphemistically called Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) formerly bankrolled by these taxes but now by the circuitous route of collecting/sending them to the Consolidated Fund and then being funded from the national budget.

In 2016-17, TEF Income was $6 billion; “Project expenditure” $5.3 billion. In 2019-20, approved TEF budget was J$3.57 billion; Expenditure J$3.84 billion. How does TEF invest in ordinary Jamaican citizens’ enhancement? According to TEF website:

“The [TEF’s] role is to lead tourism innovation in the areas of transformational infrastructural and sustainable projects, human capital development and tourism linkages…..”

2016-17 Directors’ report informed “50 per cent of TEF’s revenue [was] allocated to tourism marketing.”

But I thought tourism marketing was JTB’s responsibility. That agency was created by The Tourist Board Act, inter alia, to “adopt all such measures they may deem fit to advertise and publicize Jamaica as a tourist resort.”

Despite an unflattering 2015 Auditor General’s report on JTB’s operations, in 2017, TEF gave JTB $2.8 billion for “overseas marketing” ($2.4 billion in 2016). Jamaican taxpayers were paying two staffs for operations to be duplicated and one agency acting as “conduit” to fund the other?

How was that “transformational infrastructural and sustainable projects”? Where’s the “human capital development and tourism linkages”?

By 2019-20 TEF reported “partial shift in sponsorship of events from [JTB] to TEF. [Event execution] remains the responsibility of JTB.” Nothing appears in TEF’s 2019-20 accounts for JTB overseas marketing. There’s no specific “sponsorship” line item.

Where EXACTLY does 40 per cent of the tourism dollar stay in Jamaica? What’s government doing to enhance that number? What percentage of fees from all-inclusive packages booked and paid for abroad light candles, sing sankeys and find its way home? After big hotels are built and temporary labour sent away, what’s done to encourage, promote and sustain small tourism-dependent businesses?

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com