Indebted overseas tour operators are paying up – BHTA

Overseas tour operators deep in debt to hotels are finally making good on their outstanding debt, albeit slowly, according to officials of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA).

And BHTA Chief Executive Officer Senator Rudy Grant said the hoteliers are looking at putting a prepayment policy in place so that hotels could be in a better position to receive payments in the future.

Crippled by the COVID-19 crisis, domestic and regional operators in the tourism industry have been eager to receive millions of dollars in outstanding payments from major tour partners in Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Senator Grant said in addition to the collection of outstanding receivables, the BHTA is in dialogue with tour operators on behalf of its members to make future payments more seamless.

Senator Grant said: “There is also in relation to prepayment. What would have happened in the past is that tour operators would facilitate visitors coming to the destination, staying at hotels, and payments would have been made 30, 60, and in some instances 90 days after. That is something that is a significant challenge particularly at a time when there isn’t the cash flow.

“Of course, we have had situations with tour operators such as [the collapse of] Thomas Cook, and where hotels have been forced to carry what then becomes an uncollectable receivable.

“We have to be very conscious of course of the relationship that we have with our tour operator partners, and the importance they play in facilitating visitors, but at the same time, we are agitating and discussing with respect to our members’ concerns in those two elements. I think we are making good progress. We are facilitating on a step by step basis and I think it has been very positive thus far.”

BHTA chairman Geoffrey Roach said the association was aware that the owing tour operators have also been affected by the pandemic and therefore they accepted that the recovery of funds would be “a process”.

He said: “We have come to different agreements with the tour operators, but by and large, our intention is to ensure that we have settlement as quickly as possible for our members.

“I would say that based on the feedback that we have received from our membership, over the last few weeks, in many cases, persons have received up to 50 per cent of what was outstanding and in some cases a bit more.”

He insisted that the payments were coming in “so we are very comfortable right now with the rate of the flow of the payments. But we are monitoring it because we want to ensure that the payments continue to come in so that within the shortest possible time those arrears are settled”.

The BHTA officials were unable to say how much was owed or is still outstanding but said it was “substantial”.

Roach said that in addition to talks with the BHTA, the tour operators have been in contact with the individual hotels “and are working with them to settle outstanding debts”.

He promised that the BHTA would continue its lobbying efforts “because there are still a number of tour operators that we have still to engage with, and over the coming weeks we are going to be engaging with more and more of them”. (MM)