Evelyn Smith elected as JHTA head

Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

A historic milestone for Jamaican women in the hotel industry was accomplished on Saturday when Negril hotelier Evelyn Smith was elected the first female to head the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) in 22 years.

Smith, general manager of Ten-Sing Pen, joins the rank of the late Lucille Lue who, up until now, was the first and only female to lead the organisation. Lue served 1991-1993.

Smith replaces Sandals Resorts International's Wayne Cummings who did not seek re-election.

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett has great expectations of Smith.

"I am looking forward with great anticipation to a fruitful and cordial relation as we build this great industry in this difficult post-recession period," he said.

"I have much confidence in her leadership ability and her transformative and visionary approaches, and her emergence from the small and medium tourism sector will give another perspective to the whole process of broadening the ownership base of the sector and should help to emphasise the key role that the industry can play in empowering small businesses and community entities," the minister said.

insurance-risk challenge

Smith said her tenure will be focused on arriving at a solution to the insurance-risk challenge facing waterfront properties, especially those in parts of Westmoreland and Portland.

"Since Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina and then other subsequent natural disasters in Chile, Australia and Japan, insurance underwriters have been further limiting their exposure to properties considered high risk. Based on the nature of natural disasters, oceanfront properties are classified by underwriters as high risk and much of Jamaica's oceanfront properties are in the tourist industry," she said.

She claims underwriters are now outrightly refusing coverage to several of our members or covering only fractions of the sum insured.

"If a property only has 50 per cent insurance coverage and incurs US$200,000 of damage from disaster not including any business loss, the property will only be able to recover US$100,000 from insurance. The property will have to find other financial resources to cover the rest such as bank loans, pushing it further into financial trouble."