There has never been any doubt that Barbados’ Director of Tourism Dr Kerry Hall’s passion for the local tourism industry is significant.
She demonstrated this over the weekend as she presented her thoughts on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the sector and how tourism’s comeback from this period ought to be reconfigured.
Joining a panel of senior tourism officials during a radio call-in programme, Dr Hall presented a compelling case for why we should not return to business as usual.
More important, she cautioned hoteliers and business owners against assuming that tourism workers will just pick back up from where they left off, when the pandemic resulted in a near shut down of the sector and the trauma that resulted for a cross section of tourism workers.
Academically qualified, experienced, but more so, an excited champion for the sector, Dr Hall has for many years touted the integral interconnectedness of the local community and the quality of the visitor experience.
She has been tireless in her efforts to sensitise large tourism operators that the average tourism worker’s role should not be relegated. It is too critical to the way the Barbados product is viewed by its consumers she argues.
Equally, Dr Hall has extolled the virtues of the sector to many ambivalent citizens who are still quick to suggest there is nothing in it for them. Or that tourism was more about servitude and exploitation with Barbadians receiving only the crumbs from this billion-dollar industry.
Her argument has long been that average Barbadians have benefited significantly and can continue to do so at a greater level. However, we agree with her urging for the sector to be structured in a way that is more inclusive and encourages greater participation.
While we concur with Dr Hall that the citizens ought to “play their part”, one cannot ignore the lived experience of too many tourism workers who have been left disillusioned by the actions of some tourism operators.
Put plainly, the ugly underbelly of tourism was on full display last year when workers, many of them women and mothers, were forced to take to the streets in demonstrations against unfair treatment by their employers.
Denied severance payments, vacation pay and in some cases wages due to them, they were forced into the indignity of pleading their cases in the press and begging Members of Parliament to intercede on their behalf.
Granted, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented shock to our economic and social existence, and our health.
But our evolution as a civilised society and our capacity to care for the most vulnerable among us was tested and continues to be interrogated. The tourism sector, which is the lifeblood of this economy has not proven itself to be a shining example of care for its most important, yet vulnerable participants.
We were not surprised by one of the examples used by Dr Hall to demonstrate the need for greater empathy and care for tourism workers.
She highlighted the case of a longstanding, hardworking tourism employee who caught the coronavirus and was warded at one of the insolation facilities for an extended period. He lamented the fact that his stay went without even a call or enquiry about his wellbeing or recovery from those responsible in the establishment where he was employed and to which he had dedicated so much of life.
It is these sour experiences of tourism workers that the expert fears could ricochet across the sector and impact the service levels and perceptions of the genuine hospitality for which our workers and Barbadians have been known.
We should not ignore Dr Hall’s admonition that tourism players take a step back and undertake a total reassessment of how the pandemic has changed the dynamics of the sector.
If workers believe they are as dispensable as the worn cutlery and tableware in the restaurant, then how are they expected to deliver a quality experience to visitors?
Dr Hall’s call for a reboot of tourism is timely. Tourism managers, policymakers and property owners must appreciate that the past 20 months of the pandemic in Barbados have been so potent, that one cannot return to “normal” operations.
A recent BBC report examining why so many hospitality workers were leaving the sector, revealed that insecurity of their employment, the stress of the pandemic, low wages, and their reassessment of work-life balance, resulted in their decision to not return to the sector when it “reopened”.
With our local newspapers and recruitment websites littered with advertisements for tourism-related jobs, it appears many Barbadian workers are also reconsidering whether tourism is where they want to hitch their career wagon.
