Financial crunch hits tourism

THE global financial crisis has hit Caribbean tourism, resulting in job cuts and employment freezes, among other measures to contain spending, three days ahead of the official start of the winter tourist season.

Among those affected, Sandals Resorts International, the largest hotel chain in the region, has announced it is reducing its staff complement by 650 employees, including 285 from Jamaica.

An Observer file photo of the Italian Village at Beaches Turks and Caicos where 104 displaced Jamaican workers will be sent.

Sandals is also reducing staff in St Lucia by 200 and in The Bahamas by 150, a statement from the hotel chain confirmed yesterday.

"We sincerely regret having to take the decision to reduce our staff complement throughout the Caribbean at this time," Sandals said, adding that it had delayed this action "for as long as we possibly could because our first priority is always to support the people who make up our organisation".

SuperClubs, the second largest chain, said it was rotating staff and "marketing aggressively" to keep occupancies from going below the norm.

"In the industry, rotation is the norm whenever occupancies go below the norm, and now we are marketing very aggressively to avoid the need for this," Zein Issa-Nakash, vice-president of marketing and environmental affairs, told the Observer.

SuperClubs boss John Issa recently called on the Government to take measures to protect the tourism industry from the fallout in the global economic crisis.

Dermot Connolly, general manager of the Rose Hall Resort & Spa, formerly Wyndham, acknowledged that his organisation was also feeling the pinch.

"We are faced with the same slow down in bookings as everyone else. Our pace is off for the first Quarter of 2009 and we are in a hiring freeze and cross-training our associates to fill other positions when we have a need," he said.

"We are also re-training our associates with new tools to be able to deliver consistent, hassle-free, personalised and inspirational service when time allows between slow and busy days. We are also hoping for a cold winter up north and in Europe so people need to take a journey to the sun for work, play or just to relax and get away form the doom and gloom of the economy," Connolly said.

Sandals said it had no choice but to streamline operations and trim expenditure, in order to remain competitive throughout the coming months. But the hotel had good news for 104 of the 285 staff who are being displaced in Jamaica, noting that they would be sent to its Beaches resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where a new section, the Italian Village, will be opened in January 2009.

They will join 300 others from Jamaica who are already in the Turks and Caicos.

"This will substantially reduce the number of team members affected by these changes... This decision has not been an easy one for us to make and it is one which will have an impact on Sandals and Beaches Resorts right across the region in countries where we operate. Had we not made operational changes earlier, the staff cuts would have been greater at this time," Sandals said.

It said the relevant Jamaican government agencies had been notified of the staff changes in accordance with the applicable laws and noted that despite the reduction, the staff complement of the Gordon 'Butch' Stewart-owned Sandals, Beaches, Royal Plantation and Grand Pineapple Resorts in Jamaica now stood at approximately 5,000, with the number throughout the Caribbean now at approximately 10,000 employees.

Sandals added that the changes had come at a time when "the Sandals exchange programme has been escalated and team members have an opportunity to further their on-the-job training and experience by transferring to a resort within the Sandals chain in another country.

"In the first quarter of 2009, some 150 team members from Jamaica will be posted at overseas resorts. Likewise, the same number of nationals from the other countries where Sandals and Beaches operate resorts will be coming to Jamaica on the programme...

"The duration of this global economic downturn is so far uncertain, and the coming tourism season is going to be a really tough one for the industry. However, we are confident that given the strength of our brand and our ongoing and escalated efforts in the marketplace, we will be around to see a strong recovery in the travel and vacation market," the statement said.