More needed to attract tourism workers

Tourism bosses may have to make benefits more attractive to draw employees back into the sector.
As Barbados continues to face a labour shortage in the tourism and hospitality industry in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, General Manager of Atlantis Submarines Roseanne Myers says it is time to look at incentivising people to work in the field, particularly as many people were being pulled overseas to higher paying jobs.
“I think we have to relook our remuneration strategies…. People are not necessarily looking for long tenure; they are looking for shorter tenure and looking at the benefits,” she said.
“I find people look at the salary on its own, and don’t necessarily pay attention to medical, pension and so on and the whole idea of security of tenure, so that when you do have to move you’re moving to a position where sometimes you go from a permanent position only to contractual.”
The tourism labour shortage was highlighted at the Caribbean Travel Forum last month and Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a national conversation between labour and capital on the matter.
During that time, she pointed out that circumstances had changed for many former workers since the height of the pandemic.
Myers, a longstanding tourism practitioner with over 40 years in the business, agreed that many persons had reassessed their options during the pandemic, re-skilled and moved into other industries.
However, she stressed that the situation can be addressed through frank dialogue, where “we plan, prioritise and execute what is happening and how we can put structures in place organisationally and as a country to deal with it”.
The former chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. stressed that the discussion must also include the job skills needed to drive the industry, as individuals with technical skills are “very scarce”.
“There are some things that we actually need that we need to train for. There are no good boat repair technicians and persons to do that type of work – I guess because we don’t have a boat yard. But that is an area where people will actually find employment, that we could actually start to develop, but it’s not going to happen on its own. It’s not gonna happen overnight,” Myers said.
“What skills do you need when we look at the CVQs? Are they matching the skills that are needed in the region? So it’s definitely a conversation that we need to have.”
In addition, Myers stressed that individual companies must do an analysis of where they are, what they need and feed that information into the national plan.
(JB)