JHTA says no
Published:Sunday | December 12, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Likening the proposal by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) to increase the levy on incoming airline passengers as 'Nicodemus in the night', president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), Wayne Cummings, says his organisation will fight the decision vigorously.
In a meeting on Friday, the TEF Board ratified a proposal to increase the tax from US$10 to US$20 upon the approval of Parliament. The same proposal was rejected by the board a month ago.
"Our minister of tourism is treading on some very dirty and murky waters, and the industry will not support it," said a clearly upset Cummings, who threatened that he would ensure his overseas partners, tour operators, wholesalers, airline and travel agents stood firm against the tax.
Arguing that none of the island's hoteliers can raise their room rates because of market conditions at this time, Cummings questions the Government's rationale in raising the tax on the fund's fifth anniversary.
Key members
Some of the key board members, including Cummings and Sandals Resorts International's Adam Stewart, were absent from the meeting.
"If you go and add one more tax to the tourism industry, it's as if you want to kill the industry," said Opposition Spokesman on Tourism, Dr Wykeham McNeill.
"Our Christmas present last year was the increase of GCT on the industry. This year, already, there has been the tax on alcohol, and now this. The hotels are struggling under the burden of high electricity and water bills while their room rates are heavily discounted due to market conditions," he said.
"This is not the time for any further burden," said McNeill.
He argued that part of the problem was that the industry was not seeing where the TEF money was going. Since its inception five years ago, the TEF has collected approximately US$17 million annually, nearly J$7 billion over the period.
Any increase by the TEF must be done by the minister of finance.
Addressing stakeholders at the TEF fifth-anniversary celebrations at Sandals Cay last Friday night, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett announced that the fund needed more to assist the country with marketing; he, however, did not say the board had voted to double the amount.
"I support the JTB's needs to have enough funding to market the destination, but the Govern-ment earns some $2 billion from the industry from which they are able to reinvest into the desti-nation," stated Cummings.
National coffers
Josef Fortsmayr, president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourist Association, who is also on the TEF Board, voted against the increase, saying the industry must be funded from the national coffers.
Admitting that the Government has been starving the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) of money to use in its international advertising, Fortsmayr said the budget had been cut over and over again, and with International Monetary Fund conditionalities, the JTB is getting even less.
The minister said he had made no policy decision on an increase to the TEF. It is premature to make any public comments, he said. "There is a need to increase the income flow - the whole business of being able to deliver on the promise to enhance the product and to secure the sustainable development of the industry."
In the meantime, the tourism minister remained mum on the reported 100 per cent increase proposed by the TEF Board.