THE Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) has decided not to send any of its representatives to tomorrow’s directors meeting of the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) until Tourism Minister Portia Simpson Miller appoints to the board, the five members whose names they submitted almost three months ago.

“The JHTA’s position is very clear. The council has recommended five of the strongest marketing persons that Jamaica possesses to help the JTB at this time of internal and external crisis. And it is, however, in the power of the minister to either act or not act on that recommendation,” JHTA president Josef Forstmayr told the Sunday Observer.

Forstmayr, as well as David Lindo from the cruise shipping sector, Michael Clarke representing the U-Drive sector, and Couples Resort’s Paul Pennicook resigned from the JTB board in June in the midst of a public quarrel in the sector over the direction of the tourist board and against a fall-off in visitor arrivals.

Vana Taylor, who heads the Jamaica Association of Villas and Apartments, was the only JHTA member who kept her seat on the board, apparently on instructions from her members.

The JHTA then recommended five persons to the board:

* Chris Zacca from Air Jamaica;

* John Lynch from Sandals Resorts International;

* Zein Nakash of SuperClubs;

* Frank Rance from FDR Pebbles; and

* Pennicook.

However, the five have still not been officially named to the board, and the JHTA’s stance is that they are therefore unable to attend any JTB meetings until the issue is dealt with.

“At one point in time there was this comment that they had not received the resignations,” said a JHTA member. “Mr Forstmayr and the JHTA made sure that they re-faxed every single one of them and they are now in the possession of the ministry. Now, whether or not the secretary, or whoever, has not physically given them to the minister, that’s really their problem. The ministry has the resignations, the board has the resignations and the JHTA has copies.”

Simpson Miller was unavailable for comment and Forstmayr, while making it clear Friday that he was not attacking her, insisted that the ball was in her court.

“The JHTA has done everything it can to inform the minister and to assist the minister in carrying out her duties,” Forstmayr said. “We can neither appoint nor revoke the appointment of a director of the JTB, only the minister can do that and hence we now look to the minister to make her choice to appoint a strong board so that we can get on with the business. But in the meanwhile, the members of the JHTA that had resigned from the JTB, that have recognised the fact that the JHTA sent them to the JTB in the first place, those four members will not be available for any further dialogue on the JTB board.”

The board consists of about 12 persons, therefore the four absent JHTA members will not be enough to stall tomorrow’s vital meeting which should have on its agenda, the allegations of financial and professional impropriety at the JTB’s New York office. The meeting will be presided over by Bill Clarke, who has had a rough ride since he became chairman earlier this year.

Clarke has had to face criticisms of poor performance by the JTB and that he has been slow in pushing through reform to make the agency more efficient and to attract more visitors to Jamaica.

On Friday, Forstmayr questioned the wisdom of having the meeting without the JHTA representatives.

“It (would be) a huge concern, if I were the minister or the JTB director or chairman, to make difficult decisions that have to be made now — because there are some very urgent things that need to be done” he said.

“Now, if I (were the minister, director or chairman and I did) not have the full support of the majority of my industry in this process, I (would) be very concerned.”

JAVA’s Taylor, however, said she intends to be there, representing her organisation that provides 34 per cent of the island’s rooms.

“All I can tell you is that the JAVA representative will be at the meeting, so that part of the sector will be well represented,” Taylor told the Sunday Observer.

“I will make my decisions on whatever I am asked to decide in the interest of destination Jamaica first, and secondly in the best interest of my membership. So I’ll be there, all the other members will be there except those that don’t wish to come. I am sure that they were invited like all of us, they got their letters of invitation.”

Yesterday, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party called for the dissolution of the entire board and the installation of an interim commission until the current slew of problems are solved.

“The Opposition is calling for an interim commission to run the JTB in light of the present crisis which obtains in the Ministry of Tourism,” said the party’s spokesman on tourism, Ed Bartlett. “This call comes against the background of the latest position of the JHTA not to attend any meetings of the JTB until the issue of the appointments to the board is resolved.”

Bartlett said that the interim commission should be made up of successful and highly professional stakeholders and practitioners in the industry who, he said, would be able to work with the minister to restore the image of the JTB and aggressively market Jamaica “over the next 90 days or so”.

According to Bartlett, the combination of the JHTA/JTB imbroglio, coupled with the “embarrassing allegations of corruption and possible misappropriation in the New York office”, the instability in the marketplace and the looming buying cycle for ad placement in a soft market, called for drastic action.

“I am concerned about the image of us that this (infighting) projects overseas, about our effectiveness in the market with the background of the very poor September and October forward bookings,” he said. “We need to dissolve the existing board and replace them with an interim commission until this is sorted out. At the moment, those who are there can’t move the industry forward, they cannot. The industry now needs a steady influence to give the marketing and overall operational integrity to engender confidence in the marketplace and to restore our position overall.”