EDITORIAL: The tough job for Mr. Bartlett's tourism advisers

Mr Edmund Bartlett, the tourism minister, deserves congratulations not only for the idea, but for the assembling, of such a distinguished group of business leaders, including some of world tourism's most influential figures, to advise him on policy for the sector.

This group is to be led by Mr Maurice Facey, chairman of the conglomerate Pan Jamaican Investment. Mr Facey's deputy is Mr William McConnell, managing director of the Lascelles de Mercado Group, whose holdings include Wray & Nephew, the distillers of the famous Appleton rums.

The other members are:

Mr Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, principal of the Sandals chain of hotels;

Mr John Issa, principal of the SuperClubs hotel group;

Mr Miguel Fluxa, chairman of Iberostar hotel;

Mr Karl Hendrickson, the entrepreneur who is chairman of The Courtleigh Hotel;

Mr Daniel Grizzle, owner of Charela Inn;

Mr Tony Hart, chairman of the Hart Group of companies;

Mr Hugh Hart, a distinguished lawyer who held Cabinet positions in the 1980s, including for tourism.

Perhaps the last time such a blue riband team of private-sector leaders was put together to help a Jamaican government map strategy for investment and growth was in the early 1980s. That one was led by the late Carlton Alexander, named by then Prime Minister Edward Seaga as counterpart to the Rockefeller Committee of US corporate titans appointed by Ronald Regan to help steer investment to Jamaica.

We hope that Mr Bartlett's group doesn't come to the same end as the Rockefeller Committee, which eventually petered out with relatively little to show for its high-profile effort.

what is expected

In that respect, it is important that the public know what to expect of Mr Facey's committee - what it is expected to do. It is not enough for Mr Bartlett to bask in the quality of the team or to speak in broad sweeps about its expected impact. He must provide its detailed terms of reference.

This newspaper, however, has a sense of what it does not expect the committee to be: a lobby for very narrow sectoral interests, or, as some expect, a mere advocate of lower taxes for tourism in particular hotels.

This position is not an a priori assumption that tourism businesses, which tend to pay lower taxes and receive far more promotional subsidies than other sectors of the economy, are undeserving of these or more breaks. Such a move should be part of broad reform of the taxation policy to the benefit of the general economy.

The point is that while we fully embrace the importance of tourism as Jamaica's current leading industry, we understand that it is not sustainable if everything else is in shambles.

In other words, we expect that the committee's recommendations for the enhancement of tourism will be placed in the broad context of national development.

For instance, Mr Facey's committee is expected to highlight the need for improved airlift so the bodies are there to fill Jamaica's hotel rooms. But that should be in the context of how more tourists might impact other areas of production and create opportunities for forward and backward linkages with the rest of the economy.

Theirs, therefore, must be more than an update of the Tourism Master Plan of the past decade. It must not only acknowledge the importance of Jamaica's tourism, but locate it in the context of a competitive global economy.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.