EDITORIAL: Review the casino law

Jamaica will this week mark the start of the winter tourist season relatively optimistic about a decent performance.

Ed Bartlett, the perennially upbeat tourism minister, projects that visitor arrivals over the three-month period will increase between four and five per cent when compared with last winter.

That performance, if achieved, will be a little less than half the 9.3 per cent increase of last winter. But it is not to be sneezed at, especially in the context of the performance of the Caribbean's tourist industry this year.

This destination is among a handful in the region that will register an increase in stop-over visitors in 2010 - an estimated 4.2 per cent - even if income has not kept pace with arrivals. That tourism has, and should continue to perform decently is important to Jamaica given that it is the only sector that has not totally wilted from the assault of the global recession.

In that regard, Jamaica's tourism managers, Mr Bartlett included, deserve commendation. But they would be wrong to assume that recent performances, relative to our Caribbean neighbours, were sustained solely because of their marketing skills and organisational genius.

Jamaica had the good fortune of entering the recession with a relatively fresh product, helped in no small measure by substantial investment in, and upgrading of, infrastructure in the tourism belt in the 1990s. This was followed by the massive investment in new hotels during this decade by Spanish hotel chains - the so-called Spanish invasion. Domestic operators were, in turn, forced to refurbish their plants and become more nimble so as to remain competitive.

Competitive market

Some of this sprucing up is ongoing. But as those who set policy for the sector are aware, tourism destinations such as our own have to refresh consistently, if not remake themselves, if they are to maintain their edge in a very competitive market.

The upgraded Jamaican product is not yet stale, but it is not pristine as it was two or three years ago. In that regard, the policymakers can't rest on their laurels.

They have to think of new ways of burnishing the destination. Resorts anchored around casinos were to be the next phase of the enhancement, jump-started by the much-talked about Harmony Cove resort development in Trelawny, and Palmyra's casino/hotel at Rose Hall, St James. Both of these projects are well behind schedule, and the state of the global market for credit, many analysts believe, will continue to slow their take-off.

There is also another problem. The Casino Gaming Act passed by the Jamaican Parliament this year essentially restricts the granting of casino licences to integrated resort developments, of one or more hotels, with at least 2,000 rooms. None of those rooms can have been in existence, or under construction, prior to the developer's application for a casino licence.

In the current environment, it seems unlikely that the Jamaican Government will get many licence applications. Moreover, the requirement precludes the granting of a casino licence to, say, the recently completed Fiesta hotel in western Jamaica, even if it proposed to double its existing 1,000 rooms.

We would suggest to the Government that it would be sensible to review quickly at least that aspect of its casino law.

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