#BTEditorial – Surviving another blunder

Our Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins must certainly be wondering what else could go wrong in her Ministry.

In the middle of a pandemic and a near global economic recession caused by the health crisis, Senator Cummins was given what could be considered the most important Ministry in the Mottley Cabinet.

In her biggest shakeup of Cabinet since her overwhelming victory at the polls in 2018, Mottley made the decision to switch the sharp-tongued, politically savvy, and ambitious St James Central Member of Parliament, Kerrie Symmonds, for the untested, young, articulate senator.

Though no stranger to how Government operates, having worked in the foreign service and is the holder of advanced certification in international trade, Senator Cummins, may still find it useful to re-examine her handling of the list of controversies that have followed her short tenure.

Politics, as they say, are no Sunday School games. They are for big girls and boys who can take the adoration and the knocks that will come. For while we are not prepared to give the Cabinet member a pass on the newest controversy, we are of the opinion that Senator Cummins is mature enough to learn important lessons from the perceived major missteps occurring in her ministry.

The most recent faux pas surrounds the reported $750 000 paid for Barbados’ relaunched tourism campaign intended to inspire the world to return because we are back in business.

To say that it has not gone well would be an understatement. In fact, it has gone embarrassingly wrong, and the Minister has much to explain, after vociferously defending the “world Little Island, Big Barbados tagline.

Condemned for being uninspiring, little did the country know the tagline was also very worn; and worn several times by countries in far flung places and even by our neighbours in the Caribbean.

How could this have happened to a mature, sophisticated tourism destination like ours? Who gave the approval? Who did the checks for authenticity? Will we get a refund? Was it a local branding company that produced this or high-flying international agency? Will heads roll? Is the Minister and or the executive team at the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.

(BTMI) who approved this fiasco, be prepared to resign? The criticism has been swift and justifiably harsh. How could Barbados have paid such a tidy sum for a cut-and-paste tagline that was used or is in use by Bequia, Bermuda, Jersey, Malta, Jamaica, Micronesia, Taiwan, and Slovakia? Following the sudden resignations of two top, accomplished national tourism executives, one has to raise serious questions about the direction of the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport.

Thousands of tourism workers have been laid off and unlikely to find permanent positions any time soon; many hotels, guest houses and apartments are virtually empty.

Barbados is currently operating on borrowed foreign reserves. This country needs to have a strategic plan for the sustainable relaunch of tourism, the island’s main economic driver.

COVID-19 has been devastating not only for us but tourism destinations around the world. And so, the competition for the emerging set of post COVID-19 travellers will be fierce.

We cannot, at this stage, afford to make such amateur mistakes. As Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Cleviston Haynes, outlined in his last review of the economy, it is not a pretty picture.

Four consecutive quarters of economic contraction, the last being by almost 20 per cent, is not a situation that can be left to chance.

Tourism has been the anchor for this economy for decades. As we have witnessed over the past 14 months, the absence of a vibrant tourism sector, results in a significant shrinkage in almost all economic sectors.

Chairperson of the BTMI and respected tourism executive Roseanne Myers has promised an investigation into the matter and we eagerly await the findings, which should be made public.

In the meantime, we concur with leader of the Democratic Labour Party Ms Verla DePeiza that efforts should be made to recoup the money reportedly paid to those who produced the controversial tagline.

Unless Senator Cummins takes decisive action, it will be hard for her to shake the criticism that she is not ready for the mammoth task of shepherding such an important ministry as the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport.

“The BTMI obviously was not minding its business,” was how Ms DePeiza put it. As someone who seeks to wrestle with Prime Minister Mottley during the next general election for political power, we fully expect she will take the fight to government.

But this matter is much more than politics. This is about the survival of thousands of Barbadians who are depending on a successful revival of our tourism sector.

We cannot play games. This is about survival; lives and livelihoods are at stake.