Kicking The Golden Goose
Kicking The Golden Goose
UK ETAs go into effect, new air routes in the Caribbean, tourism industry mismanagement in Barbados
As a unionist, I do mourn the loss of the West Indies Federation, and what could have been. As a flag enthusiast, thank God it died. That thing (the flag) was ugly. Seriously, look it up. What were we even thinking?
This is Disgruntled Musings, a compilation of quick commentary on the latest socio-political news and updates from across the Caribbean region.
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UK to introduce ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation) for Caribbean
Gov.UK
Because traveling to the UK from the Caribbean wasn’t eye-wateringly expensive enough, London’s Home Office has cooked up a new way to nickel and dime anyone who deigns to step foot in merry old England. The new ETAs which were slapped onto middle eastern states last year are finally being rolled out to more countries starting with the Atlantic. Any traveler who currently doesn’t require a visa to enter the UK will need to pony up 10 British pounds for the privilege of enjoying unseasoned food in equally unseasoned weather. Jamaicans can rest easy knowing that they aren’t being shafted any more vigorously than before. It’s just the rest of the region which now has to apply for these Visas that aren’t visas.
The rationale behind this new scam? To quote the home office…
“Once fully rolled out, the ETA scheme will close the current gap in advance permissions and mean that for the first time, we will have a comprehensive understanding of those traveling to the UK” - Home Office
So you didn’t before? Were British Airways and Ryannair throwing flyers out the windows inconspicuously letting them parachute in the cover of night into the English countryside? Now you may be saying, it’s only 10 pounds. I dare say we shouldn’t give them a single coin with Charles’ mug on it. It’s honestly an insult. How dare you? This audacity. They’ve got some nerve asking for a cent more after the experience most West Indians endure to even get to the place. We aren’t begging. It’s 1500 USD minimum, and only one way to get to the UK from Barbados during the cheapest bouts of the year. Unless these ETAs streamline some kind of security process and let me pass unfettered through the airport, why are you charging me? This reeks of revenue scraping from the rest of the world where you couldn’t rob them in an alleyway and call it a visa application process, so this was the next best thing.
It’s even more ironic given that many of the countries about to be hit by this, still have the British monarch as their head of state. The information they will be asking for on this ETA is quite frankly no different than a light visa, or the paper immigration forms you scramble to fill out during descent into just about any country in Latin America. However the difference is that Colombia isn’t charging me for their logistical ineptitude. Without a doubt, these ETAs will become the norm more widely as countries get pettier and pettier. I can’t blame them, I for one think the Caribbean should do the same for UK visitors, but we’re too scared we’d annoy the tourists too much, you know the ones that are spending 3 months of a local’s salary just to fly here. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience those poverty stricken vacationers now would we?
Let’s check in on all these new flights whizzing about the Caribbean
Simply Flying, Caribbean News Now, Caribbean Life
JetBlue to increase Boston BGI winter service. Okay big whoop. I’ve found it hard to really get excited about JetBlue news ever since they killed the Fort Lauderdale route. JetBlue is American Airlines’ only competition when it comes to Barbados - USA flights at the moment. There was a brief period where this could have all come crashing down last year with that whole partnership deal but thankfully the US DoJ exercised sense and slapped them both back to reality. Sadly, the Fort Lauderdale route has not returned and this means that American Airlines has a veritable monopoly on connecting Barbados to the southern USA. Not just Barbados, the same is true for many islands in the Eastern Caribbean where United or Delta don’t operate at all.
There was a rather hilarious moment where Prime Minister Mottley announced that she had spoken to JetBlue and that they’d be bringing the Florida flights back. Never happened, big egg on face moment there. But right now, JetBlue can’t take you from Barbados to Florida at all. Kiss that cheap Disney vacation goodbye.
This is why we’re seeing an influx of so many travelers opting to fly through Panama via Copa airlines. Sure you have to layover in Central America but it’s still much cheaper than flying directly with any of the legacy 3.
This could change in a month or two once Delta returns to Barbados with flights to Atlanta and New York resume in November. Delta had previously discontinued service back in 2016 so this could provide much needed competition to the incumbents. They will also be resuming a similar service to Curacao. For how long? I don’t know. There seems to be a recurring pattern here with these airlines either dropping or reducing service on a whimsy or once the luster and promises made to them by the BTMI (Barbados Tourism and Marketing Inc) wear off.
Does anyone remember KLM? They made a huge deal about 100 years of connecting Barbados when they returned and even opened travel offices here. It honestly looked like for a moment the island had a legitimate new connection to Europe. There is no mention of Barbados on KLM’s website now. This was just a year ago. It’s dead. Not a word from KLM or the tourism authority. And this is becoming pretty common. Norse Air also started low fare flights to Barbados and within 3 months all mention of them had also vanished. It seems that no matter how many new announcements the BTMI make, service always corrects back to JetBlue, British Airways, American and Virgin. Maybe our market is simply too small. I don’t think that’s the case. A clear trend also points to under-utilisation of the Barbados brand. In the long term, these seasonal burps of interest from airlines aren’t sustainable, and if Barbados continues to push itself as a seasonal destination, we’ll keep adding to the rotating graveyard of routes that could have been.
Oh, and I bet no one noticed that United started flying between Georgetown, Guyana and Houston Texas. That one had all the fanfare around it back in April but it doesn’t take a genius to see it’s just an airlift for American workers and expertise to get to Guyana. I mean why Texas of all places? Is there a Yeehaw-Curry Chicken diaspora I didn’t know about? Guyana’s population hasn’t even broken 1 million people. I don’t think Texans are clamoring to see all the variants of brown and green the country has to offer (and I’m just talking about the beaches), and this lines up pretty nicely with that oil boom. Well that’s another one to watch.
Oh and finally, during the recent Africa-CARICOM day celebrations (wow we really are just making these up), Barbados Minister for transport Kerrie Symmonds continued to hint that new air links between Africa and Barbados are coming. They’ve even chartered a few flights to bring our continental cousins over for this year’s independence celebrations. We are really pushing this Africa trade thing… Do we have access to the same maps as the government? I’m all for cultural homage and all that but trade? South America hasn’t drifted any further from us last I checked and that potential is untapped and ginormous. Yet we’re looking to that one continent where we only reach out to borrow nurses or money for white elephant stadium renovations.
Who is asking for these air links with Africa? I still can’t get to Disney World! The logistics don’t even make sense. And what will happen the next time there’s an outbreak of any of the continent’s seasonal illnesses? We built a quarantine behind a school during one of the last Ebola outbreaks. Do we want that level of ineptitude handling an actual resurgence of Ebola, now with direct flights to the region? Ugh, let me end this segment before I faint.
Finally, this isn’t really news but I think it was worth a mention given all the CARICOM brouhaha… But it’s been 165 days since the CSME failed to ratify the new freedom of movement bill. It just quietly died. Maybe the freedom of movement was the friends we made along the way.
Onto the Long Talk!
Kicking The Golden Goose
How to kill your breadwinner…
Barbados is a luxury tourism destination. All the trappings are there. Sure there are industry metrics and variables that confer this designation based on whatever esoteric attributes it sees fit. Maybe you need to have a 5 star hotel that begrudgingly ensl-, I mean employs significant chunks of your population, or golf courses that disrupt the natural runoff of much needed-aquifer replenishing rain on your water scarce island. Who knows? What I’m getting at here is that when you think Barbados, you think, wealthy. We’ve got amazing resorts, and apparently some of the best property and service in the region. “How would you know Shem, you’re poor.” Firstly, touché. Secondly, I live here so give me some credit. Thirdly, let’s go on a journey.
Before the pandemic, we would hear of “bumper tourism seasons”. This meant the industry had done well by its own standards. Tourism has evolved to be the primary reason Barbados even exists today. Before the turn of the 20th century the island was the font of Britain’s plantation prowess, a powerhouse of the green gold that was sugar cane. We had a good run, but with the fall of the empire, the collapse of the Federation and the swift winds of globalization, sugar eventually succumbed to the reality of the market. We couldn’t compete with the sheer volume from the new kids on the block like Brazil and the abomination that is beet sugar. Mummy dearest, aka the UK, also got with the times and stopped giving us preferential market access. Almost overnight the sugar industry met its end. The only thing to die was faster was Grenada’s spice industry after Hurricane Ivan.
Tourism rose to fill that void. The world was reeling from a second global war and Brits were keen to take selfies for the yet to be invented Instagram. Sandy beaches make for better backdrops than bombed out towns after all. There was a mad dash to build hotels around the 80s and 90s. At about 10000 rooms we had a respectable tourism product, a luxury product if you will. And with mostly Brits fleeing to our shores, there was a bit of a captive market. Those rooms held up, hotels came and went, but those numbers remained.
The 90s are upon us. Brits have more money now. The bombed out towns are now just regular towns. We blew up an entire Hilton and built a new one. Barbados, has 10000 rooms. Geopolitics and changing tastes have enabled more people to fly. The Cold War is over and it’s time for a vacation. On top of our resort offerings, Barbados sports world-class telephony services, surprisingly well kept roads in an extensive road network, a single 5-star resort and a stable government. People are still coming.
The 2000s hit. Barbados has 10000 rooms. A weird tax based on the distance between London and a destination’s capital comes into effect. For a while, it’s somehow cheaper to fly London - Honolulu than it is to fly London - Bridgetown. The traveling public notices but the faithful keep coming. We’re gearing up for the ICC World Cup in 2007 and building a new highway. We rent a cruise ship to hold the expected influx of visitors, a sign that we see the problem but choose to ignore it.
The 2010s lumber in. Barbados has 10000 rooms. The problem is glaring now. How is no one bringing it up? Hold that thought, the COVID Chronicles are about to begin. We get knocked to the stone age. There’s a reset of the narrative. Post-COVID the industry is now “rebounding”, with bumper seasons again… and 10000 rooms.
Okay I’ll just say it now. We don’t have enough rooms. We’ve been stuck at that 10000 number for decades. The reason is bureaucracy. The government of Barbados is so slow and cumbersome it can’t put the necessary business and concession facilities in place to allow private enterprise to increase our capacity. This lazy approach to the lifeblood of the economy has resulted in some facepalm-worthy moments and situations that continue to hamstring tourism to this day.
We will never be able to compete with the likes of the DR and Bahamas on mass market tourism. It’s trash anyway. But the high-end market we do cater to, that we excel at, is now woefully under-served by our offerings. The Hyatt Ziva remains unbuilt after over a decade of talk and excuses like environmental consults. The airport has no jet bridges and there’s been no word on the bid to enlist a private proprietor to bring the aging facility into the 21st century.
The government is also easily swayed and coaxed by powerful unions that would rather see the island sink beneath the waves before they are forced to compete with international entrants. The dream of Uber was rapidly squashed by the taxi unions. Now a trip from the airport to the capital is more than 30 US… on an island that is a mere 21 miles long. New resorts are subject to the mercy of the hotel union/cabal which tangles any new challenger up in so much red-tape they just bail or stall indefinitely. The end result is the Wyndham Resort, the first to be built in decades which is bafflingly on the island’s least tourist-friendly coast. And most egregiously some potential resorts are eternally embroiled in global controversy, with the government leaving the properties to simply return to nature like a Walking Dead film set. The unfinished Four Seasons and Harlequin come to mind.
Perhaps the government would be more clearly able to see the self sabotage if the head honcho of the tourism industry, the Minister of Tourism, was a carefully selected professional rather than another crony of said government. It’s rather maddening to live on an island that purports to be powered by tourism, yet treats it in this way. Tourism is technically a natural resource. We have an infinite supply of sun, sand and sea, with a fan base to match. It is laughably under-utilized by a government that cannot perceive the geological gold mine it was gifted. Barbados is in the throes of an FX crunch. Not enough US is coming in to keep the government’s irresponsible spending and our way of living going sustainably. But imagine having the golden goose right there and punting it out the window, to survive off of its feathers, rather than caring for it to get an egg.