Mottley: Region’s tourism stakeholders must be ‘shapers’, not ‘takers’

WESTERN BUREAU:

AS CARIBBEAN tourism continues on its fast recovery trajectory, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley is urging the region’s stakeholders to become “shapers” rather than “takers”.

The region has the envious position of being the fastest to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is also renowned for leakages, owing to the billions earned not remaining here.

But Mottley feels this position is untenable and is urging stakeholders to take a more active role in shaping the industry, rather than simply relying on outsiders who reap heavily from the region’s natural resources.

She said that nothing should stop stakeholders from leaving this country with an agreement to form a major Caribbean tour operator that is capable of marketing our destinations.

Mottley made the remarks at the Caribbean Travel Marketplace, which officially opened last night at her residence in Bridgetown.

The tough-talking politician made reference of her heroes, Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley, and urged owners of capital in the region to emancipate themselves from mental slavery that sees them being a taker and not a shaper.

“We’ve already established how easy it is to foreign companies to establish themselves. You already have the contacts. We’ve already established that technology allows you to have the demographic profiles and the capacity to reach people and even the awesome but frightening power of artificial intelligence,” she argued.

MUST DETERMINE DESTINY

Mottley said tourism, a sector that has helped some people to escape poverty, proves that stakeholders who have invested for the last seven decades must now come together and determine their destiny.

She was quick to point out that her intention was not to take business from existing people, but she also noted that when one opens a restaurant next to another restaurant, nobody talks about taking away business.

“When other cruise lines open up, nobody says that Carnival or Royal Caribbean is taking away business. So why is there the belief that if we as a Caribbean region, the most mature tourism region and the most heavily tourism dependent in the world seek to do what China is doing for itself, in national strategic security and what the US is doing to protect their interest, Europe to protect their energy security, how do we control whether the pot is turned on or off with respect to this sector,” she questioned.

And she answered the question in her next statement, saying: “Only if we believe that prosperity only exists in the North Atlantic should we not be prepared to become shapers.”

The respected CARICOM leader said what was required was a public conversation, a family conversation of Caribbean people, owing to the fact that the modern incarnation of tourism has been driven by foreign capital, foreign airlift, foreign markets and things that are exogenous effectively to the region’s development.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com