OBA takes aim at Govt’s use of ‘half baked’ air arrivals results

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Government’s early release of October’s tourism figures was “an attempt to use half-baked results for political gain” the OBA has claimed.

Shadow Tourism Minister Shawn Crockwell pointed to the announcement of a 5.3 percent rise in air arrivals as “everything that is wrong with the Government’s management of the tourism industry”.

Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert last week said the rise was proof the Island’s So Much More advertising campaign was working. He acknowledged that the figures only covered arrivals up until October 25 and that the month’s tally would likely be less positive due to cancellations caused by Hurricane Sandy.

Said Mr Crockwell: “The numbers themselves are meaningless for the tourism industry, which determines how it is performing on the basis of monthly, quarterly and annual results not three-week, out-of-the-blue ‘preliminary’ results to put a gloss of progress on Government work.

“Questions have to be asked: Why would the Tourism Minister, for the first time, release a three-week preliminary report on October, when the practice is to release monthly reports?

“Why release the October 1 to 25 results with the reservation that the 5.3 percent gain in air arrivals might not hold over the last six days of the month because of Hurricane Sandy?”

Pouring cold water on the notion that the new Bermuda advertising campaign is working, Mr Crockwell called for a Tourism Authority to be put in place.

“The Minister says he believes the 5.3 percent gain is proof that his new ‘So Much More’ marketing campaign is ‘paying dividends’. But where is the proof that bookings are due to the just-launched campaign?

“If the Minister is so intent on revealing how good things are, where are hotel occupancy-revenue figures? We understand that hotels are heavily discounting their room rates to drum up business — some as much as 50 percent according to a survey on Expedia. At 50 percent off, hotels would need to double their occupancy to approach their bottom-line targets.

“Political leadership of a business-driven enterprise such as tourism is the wrong track for the industry and Bermuda, and the Minister’s manipulation of arrivals figures shows just how easily politics can take over and drive the system.

“The Minister’s release is an example of the Government putting its political needs ahead of the Country’s needs, which in this case is best served by an honest, professional-based assessment of the industry’s performance, not a politically-driven manipulation of statistics.

“The time is long past due for the creation of a Tourism Authority that puts professionals, not politicians, in charge of the industry. The OBA will make that happen.“

A PLP spokesperson last night said: “The OBA is really grasping at straws now.

“Shawn Crockwell and the OBA want to take advantage of Hurricane Sandy — which caused the deaths of hundreds of people in addition to tourism cancellations — to make a political point.

“The OBA has sunk to a new low. Further, they also appear to be arguing that we should be less transparent and not get statistics out there in a timely fashion.

“We’re sorry that it doesn’t tell the doom and gloom story that they want you to believe about Bermuda, but we believe that it’s important for Bermuda to know the truth — that progress is being made and that before the worst hurricane to hit the East Coast of the United States in decades, tourism was doing well.

“The fact of the matter is that the OBA has no ideas and no solutions related to tourism. The only thing we hear from them is to rename the “Tourism Board” the “Tourism Authority” and say that the Governor should select its members. That’s not a plan, that’s not a vision, that’s spin from a party desperate for power.”

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