The owner of Nassau’s SuperClubs Breezes resort yesterday said the cruise industry was “damaging the social environment” of the Bahamas and other Caribbean nations by “leaving very little of the tourist dollar” behind in these countries.
In an address to the Small Island Developing States Tourism (SIDS) conference in Nassau, John Issa founder of the Breezes resort chain, urged attendees to promote land-based tourism, implying that it provided more real benefits through job creation. increased incomes, poverty alleviation and taxes than the cruise ship industry did.
He also criticised the cruise industry for squeezing the margins of attraction and excursion providers in these countries, saying that often only 25 per cent of the face value that cruise ship passengers paid for their tickets found its way into the hands of such operators.
This has been a frequent complaint from Bahamian shorebased excursion and attraction providers, who have found their profit margins squeezed by the cruise lines. Often, excursion tickets have been sold for $40 to passengers, with the cruise lines taking some $25 of that and leaving between $10-$15 for the excursion providers.
This squeeze has been cited as a factor behind Jacharic Holdings, Nassau’s largest excursion – provider’s decision to cease operations.
Mr Issa said yesterday: “The cruise tourist dollar, that sailed away long ago.
“We’re not selling the country like a cruise ship, capturing the dollars on departure and just leaving a sprinkling of it around the Caribbean as passengers go on tours.”
He added that local attraction providers at best received only 30-40 per cent of the value of tickets sold to cruise ship passengers, saying it was often “as low as 25 per cent”.
Mr Issa said: “Of the dollars paid by the cruise passengers to enjoy the attraction, 25 per cent reaches the operator. That can’t be right.”
The Superclubs Breezes owner said that while land-based casinos in Nassau and Grand Bahama were required to pay taxes to the Government, cruise ships were able to keep their onboard casinos and shops open while in Bahamian ports and pay not a cent in taxes.
He said: “There are taxes on the casinos here in Nassau, but on cruise ships in port, people can stay on board and play in the casino, and no money enters the local economy.”
Allowing the cruise ships to keep open their on-board shops and casinos while in port has been another sore point for Bay Street retailers and others dependent on the cruise ship passengers for their livelihoods, such as the straw vendors, taxi drivers and hair braiders.
They have argued that this encourages cruise ship passengers to stay on board rather than disembark in Nassau, reducing per capita visitor spending by this category of tourists. Per capita spending by cruise ship passeneers has now fallen to between $60-$70.
Mr Issa yesterday said the largest vessel in the world, the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines’ Freedom of the Seas, with 4,375 rooms on board had a shopping mall that was larger than Bay Street.
“There’s probably more rooms and more people than in the Exumas,” Mr Issa said. What does it leave behind?”
He added: “Promote the benefits of land-based tourism, because the sea-based tourism, which leaves very little of the tourist dollar behind, is damaging to the social environment.”
In contrast, land-based stopover visitors to the Bahamas have an average per capita spending of about $1,050.
Yesterday’s conference was focused on sustainable tourism development, and how tourism related projects could be viable and maximise the economic and social benefits for their local communities, while also preserving the environment.
Mr Issa said: “Good environmental practice is good business. That’s a self-evident truth.
“In terms of retaining the tourism dollar, that starts from the building and design of the project through to the staffing and supplies and the raw materials needed to produce the tourism product.”
Mr Issa cited his first resort, Hedonism 2 in Negril, Jamaica, as an example of how projects could develop links with domestic manufacturers and suppliers to ensure as much of the investment
dollars were retained within the local economy.
When construction began in 1973, Mr Issa said Jamaica had very limited foreign exchange capacity, forcing the project to rely on Jamaican suppliers.
But Mr Issa said this did not mean just hiring Jamaican contractors, architects and engineers. Instead, it meant that the resort’s light fixtures were manufactured locally, along with the floor tiles, furniture and fibreglass boats.
He added that the resort also imposed penalty clauses on contractors for damaging native trees.
Mr Issa said some 77 per cent of Hedonism 2’s pork; 35 per cent of seafood; 48 per cent of beef; 61 per cent of fruit and vegetables; 50 per cent of beer; 60 per cent of chemicals and stationary were supplied by Jamaican providers, with at least 80 per cent of refurbishment programmes going to locals.
Turning to the Bahamas, Mr Issa said he was shocked when it came to the landscaping for he Superclubs Breezes resort he acquired 10 years ago.
He added that the landscaping budget was high, but the landscapers were importing “all” their plants from Florida, rather than using native Bahamian species that would survive for longer.
“It seems to be just a habit for nursery companies to buy and sell [foreign plants] at a profit, rather than propagate local plants,” Mr Issa said.
“Another area where we can retain more money is working on developing entertainment programmes for the hotels. This is good business. We want someone who comes to the Bahamas to experience the Bahamas.
“There are some resort areas in the Caribbean (Cancun) where you don’t know which country you’re in, you only know they speak Spanish. The menus, hotels look the same.”
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor
