Tourism’s ebb and flow is a tsunami of uncertainty

While our tourism officials bask in the glow of record-breaking arrivals outside of the traditional winter tourist season, we find ourselves at familiar, unpleasant crossroads. Tourism’s seasonal ebb and flow brings with it a troubling undercurrent of instability for our workforce that we can no longer afford to excuse away.

The rise in arrivals, hotel bookings and patronage of services was fueled by the one-off ICC T20 Cricket World Cup and our 50th-anniversary Crop Over festival – an annual celebration of plenty before traditional hardship. 

The announcement of mass layoffs at Sandals, affecting about 200 breadwinners, to say nothing of countless other instances elsewhere in the industry, is a stark reminder of tourism’s volatile nature. The same officials who tout impressive growth figures and increased bookings simultaneously ask us to accept large seasonal layoffs as an “uncomfortable and unsettling reality”. This begs the question: In our pursuit of economic growth, have we inadvertently recreated the very system we sought to escape?

For three-and-a-half centuries, the rhythms of life for generations of families, enslaved and free, were dictated by the sugar industry harvest, with “hard times” with each crop over. And still, we find ourselves in the same pattern expecting a different result. An economy in which tourism workers face such uncertainty as the high season wanes bears an unmistakable parallel to the past. A nation that so proudly declares its independence from the cane blade and seeks to base its pride and industry on progress and development.

It is time for our tourism leaders to look beyond the cycle of feast and famine. The industry’s failure to effectively manage seasonality not only affects payroll and profits but ripples through the families and communities that depend on these workers. We cannot continue to celebrate record-breaking arrivals while accepting mass layoffs as an inevitable consequence.

Beyond developing year-round attractions and events that appeal to various demographics and markets, there must be a greater focus on attracting more Barbadian and Caribbean people to spend their vacations here, enjoying the hospitality so impressively laid out each winter for the Europeans and North Americans. For the tourism industry and the government to continue relegating intra-Caribbean and domestic travel to “third-tier” status is to contemptuously bite hands that could feed it in lean times. Frankly, this reflects an outmoded, colonial attitude of disdain for one’s own and fawning regard for the foreign. What’s changed?

The hotel and tourism association should explore greater investment in cross-training employees to work in different roles or sectors during off-peak times. Surely, there should be flexibility on the part of employers to partner with providers less affected by seasonality to provide alternative employment opportunities. A waiter at one hotel could serve at a bar and restaurant at another in an integrated scheme.

If our tourism officials cannot see beyond the allure of international visitors and continue to undervalue domestic and intra-Caribbean travellers, then Barbados must confront an inconvenient truth: Is it time to reconsider our reliance on tourism altogether?

As a modern, progressive nation with ambitious development goals and wealth creation needs, we cannot afford to be beholden to an industry that perpetuates cycles of instability. If we truly aim to break free from the patterns of our past, we must demand more from our tourism industry or be bold enough to do to tourism what had to be done to sugar – seriously embrace alternatives that offer our people the security and prosperity they deserve.

We have come to an inescapable if not inconvenient truth that poses this question: Are we destined to ride out this tsunami of seasonal uncertainty, or will we chart a new course towards a more stable and inclusive economic future? We need a better answer from our tourism leaders. The stakes have never been higher.