If there is one lesson the novel coronavirus pandemic has taught us here in Barbados is the fatal flaw of having so many of our economic eggs in one basket, as we have said here repeatedly. It is worse yet when that economic dependence is based on a sector with the fragility that is tourism.
Yes, many will legitimately argue that small economies like ours have few areas of sustainable economic activity that can propel a near $6 billion economy. Our population has high aspirations and expectations that they will, at least, maintain the standard of living to which they have become accustomed.
And while the widespread belief that tourism is centred on just hotels, restaurants and a few beach-related activities, the global shutdown caused by the pandemic has exposed just how deep tourism’s tentacles run.
Economic planners are still recovering from the reality that within four to five weeks, a staggering 36,000 applications for unemployment benefits were received by the National Insurance Scheme (NIS). And the number continues to rise.
Granted that some of these job losses would have been triggered by the forced closures due to Government’s curfew, the bulk of those numbers represent tourism-related jobs. Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds would have taken no delight in delivering the news that every job in the sector had been lost.
The NIS numbers are but the tip of the iceberg as thousands more in the private transport sector, fruit, vegetable, chicken and pork suppliers, laundry service providers, landscapers, tradesmen and women such as tilers, plumbers, air-condition technicians and electricians who supply services to support the hotel infrastructure have been severely impacted.
So what do we do now? Do we sit and bemoan the loss of our treasured Cinderella who is still searching for the glass slipper and royal coach that vanished in the fateful month of March 2020? Or do we start examining how we may revitalize the sectors that we have overlooked, while we were basking in tourism’s record-breaking arrival numbers?
This matter is no fairy tale; this is deadly serious. The lives and livelihoods of thousands of families are riding on the decisions of the political class and captains of industry. As local real estate guru Andrew Mallalieu pointed out during a recent news conference: “We have seen falloffs of bookings from Canada, from the United States, United Kingdom or Germany; [but] we have never seen cancellations en masse from every market. We [went] from being 100 per cent occupied… to having zero.” That statement should be a reality check for our decision-makers.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reminded us that we have been down this road before during the global financial meltdown which started in 2008/2009. Our tourism arrivals number plummeted. But instead of biting the bullet and expanding the region’s economic base, Caribbean governments, in the main, waited for the “recovery” only to find themselves in a deeper hole in 2020.
Respected policy analyst David Jessop reminded us that just US$0.15 to US$0.40 cents of each US dollar spent by a visitor remain within the Caribbean. The remainder flows out to others in the form of purchases of goods, services and corporate profits.
We will continue to argue that sectors such as agriculture, human resource development specifically for the export market, the alternative energy sector, and international business, despite the attacks by the European Union and others, all represent avenues on which Barbados can build.
We know tourism will be here for a long time, but we should no longer ignore other viable platforms for growth.
