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| Dennis Morrison |
Tourism on the road to recovery, but still early days
Dennis Morrison, Contributor
Not surprisingly, the latest reports from the World Tourism Organisation show that the recovery in the international tourist industry got stronger during the first four months of 2010 with visitor arrivals increasing by 7.0 per cent.
But, the organisation in its June 29 update indicated that the recovery, which marked its seventh consecutive month in April, remains uneven, reflecting the bumpy nature of the revival of the broader economy. The most glaring evidence of this is the wide difference in the rates of increase in tourist traffic in Asia and the Pacific (12 per cent) compared with the Americas (6.0 per cent) and Europe (0.3 per cent).
The fact is that the uptick in global economic activity, including travel, is being driven by emerging markets, and the Asia-Pacific region is the fastest recovering area. An important issue from Jamaica's standpoint is that the pace of outbound tourist traffic from the United States (US) to the Caribbean has been erratic with sizeable increases in January (7.0 per cent) and March (11.0 per cent) but a decline in February (1.0 per cent) and modest growth in April (2.1 per cent). This volatility has shown up in wild swings in the monthly growth rates of American tourists to Jamaica which moved from a low of 3.8 per cent in February to a high of 19.3 per cent in March and was down to 5.4 per cent in April.
Since April, the economic news out of the US has been mixed with consumer confidence slipping, income growth stagnating and spending barely edging up. These factors are likely to heighten trends such as late booking, shorter trips and greater insistence on value for money. That American consumers are continuing to feel the pressure from a weak economy means, though, they may favour Jamaica and other short-haul destinations. Having registered a decent growth rate of 9.3 per cent in American tourists in the January-April period, indications are that we lost considerable ground after the episode of violence in May.
Should there be a big slump in the rate of increase of US visitors, we would suffer a significant slowdown in the local tourist industry because of the sheer size of that market. But our vulnerability is even greater because the rapid growth of Canadian tourists that had offset the weakness in the US market in recent years is cooling. Up to April this year, tourist traffic from Canada had increased by just 10.6 per cent compared with 27.7 per cent for the corresponding period of 2009 and 26.8 per cent, 31.7 per cent and 24.8 per cent for similar periods in 2008, 2007 and 2006 respectively.
The resilience of the Jamaican industry should not, however, been underestimated although the after-effects of the recent events are likely to be felt for some time. Also, the traditionally strong Diaspora traffic for the upcoming holiday season will help drive the traffic and especially to Kingston, which has taken a battering in the past two months. Some good luck with the weather would help as well, given the forecast of an active hurricane season.
hospitalityjamaica@gleanerjm.com |
