Video: Shadow Minister On Tourism Statistics

“After the worst air arrivals in 48 years in 2014, tourism numbers continue to decline under the OBA in Q1 2015,” Shadow Tourism Minister Zane Desilva said, adding that “these plummeting tourism figures are bad news” for the “countless Bermudians out of work.”

Earlier this week the Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] released the latest tourism arrival figures; saying that when factoring in air, cruise and yacht arrivals, total visitor arrivals were down 5.3% in the first quarter of 2015.

Air arrivals declined 6.7% [2,066], a decrease the BTA said was “largely attributed to a 14.5% reduction [16,040] in the number of seats available after some airlines reduced airlift capacity to Bermuda in the first quarter.”

The BTA said visitor spending in Bermuda grew more than 20% in the first quarter of 2015 “injecting an additional $6 million into the local economy”, with air visitors average per person spending during the first quarter increasing 29.3% from $949 per person to $1,227 per person.

Responding to the statistics, the Shadow Minister said, “To think that the Bermuda Tourism Authority has been beating its chest about how successful they’re going to be. The OBA certainly ran on that premise the last election, and all we’ve heard about since the BTA was formed was that we’re making progress, we’re going to turn this slow moving ship around and we will be successful.

“You’ll see success in six months, we were told when they first came into office.

“After six months, the numbers went down, so they retracted that and said, “Well, you know we’re still kind of on the Progressive Labour Party initiatives, so look forward to a turnaround the next six to eight months, 10 months following that. And they then say following last year that the BTA and OBA will own 2015 figures.

“Well, here we are in 2015 and by their own words, they own the results. The results are poor; by the CEO’s own admission, they were disastrous to think that our air arrivals are down almost 7 percent, business arrivals down almost 6 percent, vacation down almost 4 percent, and friends and relatives down over 14 percent.

“I think its disappointing, and you will know that I’ve said many times that I hope the BTA, in particular, are successful.”

“If they are successful, hopefully their success is going to mean that we have hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to Bermuda – hundreds of thousands – and that’s going to be good for Bermuda and Bermudians to put people back to work,” continued Mr. Desilva.

“But its obvious that the policies of the OBA are not working. We emphasized in last year’s budget, we emphasize it again on this year’s budget. Their policies are not working; we still have too many people missing a lot of work, more people losing jobs every month, and the hope that tourism is going to be the revival tool to put people back to work is not working.

“During the budget, my emphasis was – and will be until we get back in government – that we are not putting enough money in marketing. We’re not doing it.

“You will know that if you have a product, if you don’t advertise to the people of your country, to the world, that you have a product for sale, how are you going to sell it? I watch every week on CNN, ABC, NBC, the Golf Channel, all our competitors. I watch their ads; come to St. Lucia, come to Bahamas, come to Jamaica.

“And here we are in Bermuda – you never see it. But the BTA and the OBA seem to think that social media, and advertising fish cakes and Bermuda rum, will see people come to Bermuda.

“Maybe I will be proven wrong and I make my apologies if I am. But you know what? I think that we have to pour money into marketing and we need to pour it in the terms of millions of dollars. We need to put that type of marketing money into the product. If not, it’s not going to sell; it’s not going to work.

“And I’ll say it again, if you have a product and you don’t market it, how you going to sell it? If you have a product, you market it, you sell it. What does that do to Bermuda? But all of a sudden, the airlines that the BTA are losing seems to be almost losing marginally; well, you’ll find they’ll come back because they will get the demand.

“If you market it, you’ll get the demand and if you get the demand, they’ll put on the airlift. If you put on the airlift, you’ll get the demand, the hotels are going to fill up. Then investors are going to be interested to Bermuda, you’ll find out that all of a sudden we will get more interest in Bermuda. Because we have the influx of tourists.

“So the numbers I’m very disappointed with, but the OBA, the Chairman of the BTA, Mr. Dodwell, and the CEO, Mr. Hanbury – these guys you hear almost constantly, month in and month out. We’re making progress, we’re not losing ground – really? We are on the right track – really?

“Finally, were moving on the right direction, these are words that were used yesterday. And the one that really got me was when he said, “Well, things are turning around and no question about that.”

“Wow, they’re turning around? And were going on the right direction? They’ve going down since they’ve been on office. Is that the right direction? I’ll ask the people of Bermuda, are we going on the right direction?”

And in a written statement, Mr Desilva said, “After the worst air arrivals in 48 years in 2014, tourism numbers continue to decline under the OBA in Q1 2015. These declining numbers come as no surprise as taxi drivers have been telling us for months that business was slow and the impact it was having on their families. These plummeting tourism figures are bad news not just for the taxi industry but also for the countless Bermudians out of work and hoping that a revival in tourism will mean more jobs and opportunities.

“Bermuda Tourism Authority CEO Bill Hansbury has said that he and the BTA would own the 2015 numbers after previously pledging a 6 month turnaround. With numbers continuing to trend downwards, clearly the BTA approach under the current leadership isn’t working.

“The OBA sold the BTA as an entity that would “run tourism like a business.” Yet in the business world, individuals are held accountable for not meeting deliverables. In this case, we see all of the people who should be held accountable and taking responsibility for these numbers, running for cover. From the BTA CEO to Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell, no one is taking responsibility and no one is being held accountable. This is clearly not a recipe for success.

“In 2014, The PLP called for increased investment in tourism. That call was ignored and these dismal numbers are the result. The PLP’s believes that Bermuda’s position as a tourism destination has been marginalized in the global market by an underfunded tourism marketing budget. We have to invest in tourism and the current budget simply isn’t competitive when we look at the millions being spent by our more successful competitors. This is evidenced by almost every single one of our competitors in the Caribbean seeing an increase in air arrivals over the past 18 months.

“We further believe that marketing alone will not turn tourism around. Our product must modernize, encouraging greater Bermudian entrepreneurship and inventiveness while continuing to elevate service standards and amenities available to our guests.”

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