Changes coming to tourism processes – Minister Cummins

Years of calls by the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) for improved facilitation of some items under the Tourism Development Act (TDA) and the Tourism Development Amendment Act (TDAA) will finally be answered.

On Wednesday, while giving a sneak peek into plans for the tourism sector, Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins said she will be reviewing the TDA and the TDAA with a view of simplifying the process of industry operators accessing concessions and getting certain approvals.

Raising the concern again on Wednesday, Chief Executive Officer of the BHTA Rudy Grant called for further discussion with Government on the matter, as he told the first BHTA quarterly meeting for 2022 the association was requesting expansion of the legislation to pave the way for greater benefits to be derived by the relevant tourism enterprises.

“As you are aware, restaurants which are within hotels and operated by the hotels receive the waiver of duties for the import of supplies. However, a restaurant which is in a hotel but leased to a private operator is treated as a stand-alone restaurant. We continue to advocate that those stand-alone restaurants which generate a significant majority of their revenues from foreign exchange should also receive the benefits as provided through the TDAA,” said Grant.

“In addition to the further discussion on the TDA and TDAA, we are also pursuing discussions on the operationalisation of Government’s licensing procedures. We are of the opinion that there is a more efficient manner to facilitate the licence issued by the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA). This licence is dependent on approvals and permissions provided by a multiplicity of Government departments whose priorities may not always be the same,” he explained.

Meanwhile, veteran hotelier Gordon Seale described the process of obtaining approvals on duty-free items as cumbersome, saying it was “a total unnecessary nuisance” to those in the tourism sector.

Senator Cummins agreed the system was archaic, noting that she had already reached out to the Comptroller of Customs and officials of the Barbados Tourism Investment Inc. asking for a reform of the approval of duty-free concessions process.

“I can give the commitment that there are going to be three things on our radar in this incarnation. One, those concessions and the way in which they are handled; two, we are looking at having a comprehensive review of the Tourism Development Act and how that entire legislation is structured, in particular as it relates to interim approvals for villas and small hotels for the duty-free concessions there; and thirdly, linking the new Tourism Development Act to sustainability as it relates to permissions and regulatory approvals to get them in through the system in a reasonable timeframe that matches 2022 and not the 1990s,” explained Cummins.

She said the proposal put forward was for a single window system that would allow for applications for the various duty-free and investment project procedures to be seen by all the relevant agencies in one location, lending to a speeding up of the time it takes for approvals.

While she gave no indication of how soon this system was likely to be in place, Cummins acknowledged: “Everything needs to be submitted through a single window on a single platform and that on using that platform, every agency that needs to see it, sees it simultaneously and that there is a standard operating procedure that turns it around in a pre-determined timeframe.

“That really needs to be where we go and I give the commitment that is something we are very much working on to give relief,” assured Cummins. (MM)