Safe zones not off the table for BHTA

The Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) is not giving up on its desire to see COVID-19 safe zones requiring vaccination and/or routine testing across the industry and in other key sectors.

Newly appointed chairman Renee Coppin made that clear as she revealed that many visitors were seeking services from vaccinated individuals as a prerequisite for some of their vacation activities.

Other industry sources have also informed Barbados TODAY that in west coast villas especially, guests, many of whom are elderly, have been demanding that service providers be fully vaccinated and have booster shots. This has apparently been causing some unvaccinated prospective workers to miss out on employment opportunities.

“We certainly have had requests from our tour operator partners and from our guests to try to ensure that they are as safe as possible,” Coppin told Barbados TODAY in an interview on Tuesday.

“Most of our guests now are coming in vaccinated and so … their expectation almost is that the persons with whom they will be interacting in service and in intimate settings are also vaccinated.”

Coppin said her association continues to support the view that vaccination is one of the strongest tools for returning to social and economic normalcy.

“We have always as an association said that we believe vaccination is one of the key tools in ensuring the continuity of our economy and ensuring that we are able to stay open, not just in tourism but in education, in sports and in other things,” she said.

“Vaccination has proven to be one of the things that prevent high risk of contagion and very negative outcomes in terms of the virus, and we are acknowledging that in a context where one in four of our population has chronic non-communicable diseases, we need to be even more invested in ensuring that as many people as possible are vaccinated, and that continues to be our messaging.

“So we are not stepping away from it. We are trying to recognise that it has become a very loaded issue and recognising that things will evolve and they will change, but we still continue to push and promote that vaccination is one of the key tools that we are going to use to help us to reopen and to stabilise this country,” Coppin added.

The General Manager at Pirate’s Inn and Infinity on the Beach declared that safety is one of the pillars of marketing Barbados as a tourist destination and, for the most part, arriving visitors are fully vaccinated.

She added that in many source markets, mask-wearing protocols are being relaxed, making Barbados’ extended mask mandate appear overly burdensome to some.   

“Because we still have mask-wearing protocols in place I think that maybe the emphasis for Barbadians has not been as great, but in a lot of our source markets, mask protocols are disappearing and so you would have seen recently at cricket that a lot of the visitors were not wearing masks and it’s because, in a lot of their environments, masks are no longer required in the same way that they are required here in Barbados.

“And so we are trying to balance that, we are trying to meet the expectations of all players, but, fundamentally, as Barbadians, our primary interest should be on ensuring that we are safe. So, beyond what is happening, beyond what happens with tourism, I think that vaccination simply has to be a message that we have to promote as one of the key routes to helping us ensure the safety of our country,” the BHTA chairman underscored.

Late last year, the Government appeared to be moving in lockstep with the private sector on the issue of vaccination. However, amidst public outcry from some in the trade union movement and wider society, attempts to implement a safe zone in the public health arena were put on the back burner.

Recently, businessman Dr Vidya Armogan, who orchestrated a private sector-led safe zone initiative last November, threw in the towel over waning national support.

But Coppin has vowed to continue discussions with the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA) and public health authorities on the character of safe zones as the pandemic persists across the world. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb