PM says finding local CEO for BTMI a difficult task

Prime Minister Mia Mottley is not happy that the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) has to search for a new chief executive officer to replace German Canadian Dr Jens Thraenhart.

And she has suggested that part of the challenge of finding a local tourism industry expert to take up the senior position at Barbados’ destination marketing agency is private sector operators’ fear of working in the public sector.

The Board of the BTMI announced in a statement on August 10, following news reports that Thraenhart had taken up a position overseas, that it had mutually agreed to part ways with him since July 14. Chairman of the Board of Directors of the BTMI Shelly Williams indicated that Chief Financial Officer Craig Hinds would act as CEO until a replacement was found for the tourism practitioner who served in the position for one and a half years.

“I am not happy with the fact that we ended up here,” Mottley said on Friday at a press conference at Ilaro Court.

“The reality is that there are not a lot of people in Barbados who work within the tourism sector who may be willing to come into the public sector. There are a lot of people in tourism, but do they want to come into the public sector? And that has been part and parcel of the constraint that we have had.”

A new CEO should be in place before the end of this year.

Mottley said on Friday that she has already told Minister of Tourism Ian Gooding-Edghill and the recently restructured Board of the BTMI that finding someone for the position was “priority number one and that we have to get it right”.

Thraenhart took up the role on November 1, 2021, after emerging as the top candidate from an initial pool of 178 candidates from around the world. He replaced industry expert Petra Roach who held the interim post for six months while she was BTMI’s substantive Head of Global Markets.

Roach subsequently went on to take up the position of CEO of the Grenada Tourism Authority, which she still holds.

Mottley noted that while tourism industry stalwart William ‘Billy’ Griffith, who was credited with improving the island’s tourism product, quit his job as BTMI CEO at the end of 2019, “I have an extremely warm relationship with him and I have worked with him on a number of projects that he has had.”

Speaking on the performance of the island’s tourism sector, the Prime Minister said she was satisfied that coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barbados has largely recovered in most of its tourism source markets.

She acknowledged that there was some reduction in airlift, particularly out of the US market, but she commended Minister Gooding-Edghill and the BTMI’s Board and chairman for their successful efforts so far.

“They have managed to bring to the table BahamasAir, they have managed to bring to the table Caribbean Airlines, and they have managed to look at other creative things that we are talking about now, out of the US,” said Mottley.

“So I am satisfied they are working hard. Can they do better? We can always do better. And will I insist that they do better? Of course, I will insist that we do better, but that is only one part of the equation,” she added, noting the challenges of plane and pilot shortages that have been impacting the global aviation industry.

(MM)