LETTER: To P.M. Mia Mottley

LETTER: To P.M. Mia Mottley

By Dis-inherited Caribbean entrepreneur

Dear Madam P.M.

Thank you for recognizing that we are still being sold, and failing to sell, except local market style, local tours, local food (catching on) excursions etc, while our Tourist Boards and Airport Authorities continue to protect the big dollar business of Tourism and Travel for the expatriate business owners and foreign business abroad.

Failure to control any serious sector of our Tourism & Travel, allows the international owners of our industry to decide just how much operational funds will be allocated to our island.

Meanwhile all profits are kept abroad, and more significantly the trends and marketing of our region are designed and controlled outside of our islands and our culture. Remember when the market demanded slots and prostitution, we meekly complied.

Currently in Antigua, four Ground Handling Operators at our very VCBIA and our only International Service Provider in the Eastern Caribbean have been struck off the list allowed to do high-end business at our airport.

This was done in order to protect two white expatriate business operating on Runway 10.

This in in strict opposition to aviation Rules and Regulations and ICAO, FAA and TSA established objection to exclusivity, and further US prohibition to collusion of US businesses with foreign Government agencies and PEPs.

Other Caribbean Tourist economies are subject to internal corruption with the hotel and other expatriate owned high-end properties in business with high-ranking Government officials.

These relationships create barriers to local investment and upward mobility of the entrepreneurial community.

These expats are the persons that our Governments listen to, and only going through one of them can a hopeful entrepreneur or unemployed engineer reach the ears of their own Government.

The entire Tourism system has to be overhauled with Sales & Marketing partnering with global Operators on the bottom line.

In our haste to offer a better deal than our neighbors, the region has suffered from underhand competition! Essentially the Caribbean has been under sold by the islands’ governments/Tourism officials, but certainly not by the overseas owners of the industry.

The base rates and packages sold by the region to overseas operators are basic and very reasonable with post COVID incentives and discounts.

The add-on and marketing fees plus, plus, is paid in the foreign marketplace and we all receive our ‘reasonable’ package rate.

Meanwhile our hotels and other expat owned properties which serve the industry, bank their profits abroad, and we are none the wiser, and unfortunately none the richer.

The region needs a ‘tun up’ in the tourism industry where the asset is properly assessed and evaluated, with ownership qualified to include sun, sea and sand, owned by the region, the environmental cost entered against the polluters, and the revenues fairly allocated. Caribbean people are tired of the bones, and are asking, “Where is the beef?”

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