We are already half way through what will result in many cases, both locally and around the world as one, if not the most difficult years in living memory.

Frankly I have been disappointed that we have not witnessed more creative thinking and action among the wealth of tourism professionals, who reside and derive their main income from the sector in our country. While it’s almost impossible to compare our position with that of larger neighbours, sparks of ingenuity emerge from abroad.

Take the US state of Arizona as an example. Republican Senator Martha McSally introduced legislation that would enable Americans to deduct domestic travel expenses, which include lodging on their tax returns for the next three years. The American TRIP act would provide a US$4,000 travel credit for individuals and US$8,000 for joint filers, plus an additional US$500 credit for dependent children.

Justifying the concept, Senator McSally, (a former United States Air Force Colonel, the first US women to fly in combat and command a fighter squadron) pointed out that travel and hospitality has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Adding ‘Arizona has lost billions in revenue this year alone due to the pandemic’ and ‘my legislation will help boost domestic travel and jump-start the comeback of our hotels, entertainment sectors and local tourism agencies’.

I am not, for one second, suggesting that we attempt to adopt identical legislation, but it should open up our minds, that there are alternative ways of re-opening our tourism economy, rather than totally depending on overseas visitors, with all the challenges that entails. This form of tax credit could appeal to those who are still in meaningful employment and who have disposable income.

Another way may be to lift the recently imposed room levy and temporarily remove the VAT (value added tax) that is applied to accommodation and the latter on dining, at least until some sort of measured recovery takes place.

While Government will be clearly focused on tax collection to reduce the burden of further debt which has been compounded by Covid-19, it’s long term objective may be to ensure as many businesses as possible avoid bankruptcy and return to profitability in the middle to long term, ultimately making them subject to corporation and all the additional taxes that viability and full employment brings.

Some may reasonably argue that the current timing is not right, but when will it ever more likely to be?

Are ‘we’ going to wait until more businesses are shuttered and beyond realistic recovery?

Surely now, while ‘we’ still have the time, to finally implement the long promised duty-free concessions right across the tourism sector.

It cannot be right or proper that a single entity still extracts unique trading advantages, especially when we consider the fact that most of its derived income stays offshore.

If levelling the playing-field has any real meaning to those who have taken the greatest risk and ploughed almost, if not everything, into their country, let it be clearly demonstrated and raised as a beacon to encourage further local investment.

One of the greatest challenges for the entire tourism industry post Coronavirus, in my humble opinion, will be the subject of credibility in the eyes of the consumer or traveller. Almost every day, often conflicting announcements, regarding the status of when ‘we’ are able to fly and from where, seem to hit the headlines.

Virgin Atlantic has stated that Barbados bound flights from London will only operate from Heathrow airport and this was highlighted in an advertised summer 2021seat sale launched on 16^th May.  A cursory glance at their website show fare levels substantially higher than available in previous years for similar periods.

In a recent Forbes article, British Airways (BA) told staff that ‘flights at London Gatwick may not resume in an extreme scenario’ while at the same time also reporting massive redundancies involving 12,000 staff including 1,130 captains and first officers or 26 per cent of all pilots.

However, highly competitive fares for the beginning of 2021 from Gatwick to Barbados are presently bookable on the BA site, so mixed messages creating confusion.  British Airways currently hold 51 per cent of the take-off and landing slots at Heathrow and Virgin Atlantic only 4 per cent.  So if Virgin are planning to transfer many routes from Gatwick to Heathrow, taking that capacity with them, where are the ‘slots’ or take-off and landing positions going to come from?

Recently, Air New Zealand sold a slot pair at Heathrow for a quoted US$27 million and while there will be inevitable airline failure during this crisis any additional slots that become available will still fetch premium prices.

Prior to Covid-19, Heathrow averaged one flight landing or take-off every 90 seconds on each of its two runways or around 470,000 flights per year. Bearing in mind a night jet ban operates from 11.30 pm until 04.30 am. For travellers living north of London and using public transport to reach the airport, Heathrow will become a much more attractive alternative, once the new Elizabeth Line is fully open with its faster air-conditioned trains linking to major rail stations in the capital.

The importance of raising these and other questions now, during this continued period of speculation and doubt, is to allow our visitors, both returnees and potential first time arrivals, the maximum possible time to plan a holiday to our shores.

We are now just a week away from when two of our largest hotels, jointly with over 550 rooms, announced that they are going to re-open. Many are left to wonder exactly which flights are going to fill these properties, with no apparent national policy on the restoration of airlift and questions over quarantine requirements.

I am pretty sure this is all under discussion at the highest level, but everyone involved needs to know exactly what is going on, if we stand any chance of a speedy tourism recovery. The other area that needs urgent attention are the thousands of holidaymaker’s still awaiting refunds, either from the airlines, travel agents or tour operators.

Until their monies are returned without further delay, they are certainly not going to have the confidence to book another future flight or travel package with the prospect of putting additional funds at risk.

The current Coronavirus crisis has given ‘us’ a multitude of opportunities, if we choose to seize the moment and use this time to learn and improve conditions for growing our economy, when circumstances return to any form of normality.

As I have mentioned before, especially for the smaller investor on Barbados, this process is close to a nightmare and we can personally articulate that opinion, having been embroiled in the process for the last 31 years and intensely for the last seven.

Clearly, while many of our brightest minds, whether in the private or public sector, have spare time on their hands, we have to be able to develop a better way of doing business and particularly making it easier and more investor-friendly, both for locals and foreigners alike.

In a world of virtual reality, perhaps some sort of forum can be created where all the participating component partners come together with actual investors who have already navigated the hoops and hurdles and just maybe include some of those who simply gave up, defeated by or that succumbed to the seemingly endless obstacles.

Obviously, this should include financial and lending institutions, lawyers, accountants, investment organisations (of which there seem to be several) and representatives of the various ministries involved.

One simple solution, as has been often proffered, is a one-stop-shop investment agency where each applicant is given a unique registration online number with limited password controlled access to all involved.

All the necessary government requirements in terms of proof of payment of statutory obligations could be posted on this portal, ensuring that the potential investors or vendors are not endlessly chasing around the country to ensure this paperwork is valid and currently up-to-date.

There should also be reasonable time limits imposed on all the entities involved, ie: time taken to consider and approve a loan, contractual and property sale closing period by the attorneys on both sides and response time for any Government entity involved.

The suggested website should also serve as a single source complete reference point to enable those thinking of starting or acquiring any form of tourism business can research all available concessions available.

From our personal experience, it’s almost like a game of ‘mission impossible’, notably with Government departments.

Once you have sought out and waited for what you think are all the required documents and clearance certificates, some may then have expired and the lengthy and frustrating process has to start all over again.

If we have learnt anything from the ongoing crisis, it is that we have to fundamentally improve how we use online access to information gathering, to reduce the existing reliance on human dependence, with all its associated delays and physical stumbling blocks.

On reflection, hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but I ponder just how many individuals and companies are kicking themselves, for not implementing supplemental trading measures while they had the opportunity and available funding?

Take one, if not our largest, food wholesale and retail distribution entities as an example.

If they only had spent a fraction of the millions ploughed into installing new brand signage and  instead created and managed an online website/e-business platform where people could select, order and pay for basic essentials from the safety of their own homes and have those items delivered in controlled circumstances. Such a move certainly would have helped protect employment, both for the company and its suppliers.

I have also been frankly amazed at the lack of response from major utility and service suppliers, well before lockdown, even when addressing repeated personal emails to their senior managers including managing directors. For some reason, the majority of them feel they have no obligation to respond, even when reasonable requests are made.

Equally you can attempt to contact employees at lower levels or follow the instructions on certain online or printed bills, stating ‘to share a compliment or make a query, email us at’, only to discover that address is not functional and has not been for some considerable period.

Like so many businesses, we are faced with the extreme challenge of having no anticipated earned income from which we can pay our monthly obligations.  So the natural and sensible path to take is to reach out early, to our service providers and hopefully offset or mitigate those imminent upcoming charges.

Our banks appear equally indifferent.

Yes, some may have deferred principal payments, but monthly and other charges have remained the same, despite severely reduced or the provision of non-existent services. Well before the crisis, we had given up expecting a local branch manager or employee to return voicemail or email messages, either at all, or in a timely manner.

The only remaining option is to hang-on to the telephone for an indefinite period, hoping to speak to someone that can first understand and then resolve even minor banking queries in less than two hours, usually from a remote ‘customer-care’ location in Jamaica, Latin America or God knows where.

During the prolonged Coronavirus crisis, hopefully the directors of these entities will spend a little of their newly acquired enforced leisure time in self-isolation, reflecting exactly how they intend to do business in the future, so there will be marked improvement, as and when, our economy recovers.

Poor and unacceptable customer service seems to have become rife among many of our commercial organisations and one is only left to assume that this has been accepted as the ‘norm’ by those at the highest level.

The current crisis has left many consumers with the available time to seek out and implement better working alternatives and who will be loathed to return to a sea of trading mediocrity and previous compromise.

Let us use this opportunity to bounce back with an improved way of conducting business.

Clearly, some of our captains of industry can do a great deal better.

Adrian Loveridge

Of course, it is almost impossible to accurately predict exactly what is going to happen, as to when the global effect of the Coronavirus crisis is anything close to a foreseeable end. What is pretty much assured though is that nothing will be quite the same again, at least in the imaginable short to middle term future.

What we have to remember is that not only will tourism as we currently know it on Barbados change dramatically due to the devastating financial consequences on the industry locally, but for all other than a fortunate few the very visitor heartland of our major markets will have also been negatively affected. They too will have severely depleted spending power with the time to really consider or perhaps re-consider where they can spend what remains of those hard earned monies to obtain the very best value-for-money.

Our Government will lack the financial resources to plough into subsidizing the sector, having not been able to collect the estimated taxes and levies that ordinarily would have been paid over the tail end of the winter and early summer season.

My personal opinion is that our tourism industry will recover and flourish over time, but initially to aid that rebound will mean a radical re-think of how Government extracts so many additional taxes from our cherished visitors. Airlines which fly to Barbados will only restart services if they can see an attainable and reasonable profit on the route.

Almost certainly the British Government will be forced to remove the Advanced Passenger Duty (APD) and it would appear almost inconceivable that our administration could possibly justify one, let alone the two, airport departure taxes, Valued Added Tax (VAT) and all the other add-ons.

What can we do in the interim?

Well clearly there is a great deal of scope to clean-up the island, install recycling bins, paint and restore buildings, both public and private. The available labour and materials are already here together with the support of responsible civic-minded private sector partner companies. I also believe that our national marketing agency should dramatically ramp-up our destination visual presence throughout all the social media outlets.

Tempt people back with incredible and alluring images of our beaches, places of interest, attractions, activities and dining possibilities, so that when we re-open for business, a demand has been created.

While I do not fear the future for our land based tourism the cruise sector is a whole different story.  It will take some time, together with prolonged fire-sale passenger fares, to once again entice substantial numbers onto ships which are capable of accommodating up to 6,000 passengers in severely confined spaces.

As the Caribbean remains the single largest cruise market by far, operators have a herculean tasks to persuade potential cruisers after incidents like the five ships flagged under the Princess brand (Carnival Corporation) experienced will not be repeated. And that safety and screening standards have been dramatically improved which will no longer remain a possible threat to the island destinations.