Some of Jamaica’s major tourism players yesterday called on the Government to allocate more money to advertise and promote the country in order to correct a 2.1 per cent slide in stopover visitor arrivals since the start of the year which, they project, will worsen in the summer and fall if nothing is done.

Arguing that there are dark clouds on the horizon, Sandals chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart put the figure at US$75 to US$85 million, adding that heavy marketing was needed to address the expansion of the accommodation sub-sector.

“The forces that have accepted the development must anticipate that you have to escalate the marketing to meet the demand of the additional capacity,” Stewart said at a luncheon he hosted at the head office of the Observer in Kingston.

Stewart, who is also chairman of the Observer, has been hosting a series of lunches at the newspaper to discuss issues relating to the economy. His reference to additional capacity was in relation to the influx of Spanish hotels on the island which have so far added more than 3,000 rooms.

Yesterday, Stewart found agreement among the tourism industry players who expressed concern that Jamaica was not visible in the major feeder markets abroad.

“When I speak to guests they say they don’t see Jamaica’s presence in print or television, they see Cancun,” said Sunset Jamaica Grande managing director Ian Kerr.

Stewart agreed. “What Cancun has done is you see them in every newspaper every week, you see their programmes out there and their tourist board is making all kinds of deals,” said Stewart.

Godfrey Dyer, past president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), said the success Jamaica experienced last year left the authorities feeling comfortable and as such the country was caught off guard.

“They were expecting this year to be good and as such did not take the necessary precaution,” he said, adding that while the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB) has enough money to do routine things, now that the sector is faced with a decline there is not enough money to do the kind of crash advertising that is needed.

“That is what we should be doing in the marketplace because it is the only thing that we are going to get instant results from,” said Dyer, who argued that the current US$12 million in the JTB’s advertising budget was inadequate.

The sector, which saw a 13 per cent increase last year, has already started to sputter with stopover arrivals from the United States, Jamaica’s major market, dropping 11.9 per cent since the start of the year.

The United States passport regime implemented last year, which requires all American citizens arriving home via air to have a passport, coupled with the Caricom visa regime implemented during the staging of Cricket World Cup and which should be lifted on May 15, also added a further blow to the industry.

Yesterday, Stewart insisted that if Jamaica was to make money from tourism it must be prepared to spend on advertising. He said that despite the additional room capacity that Jamaica has developed, the airlift loads are not the best because the demands are also not the best.

“When you are in a situation like this you need to get some cash to spend on quality advertising on television and in print and you need to be seen,” Stewart reiterated.

He argued that although it was possible to build new markets in Europe, 10 years from now the figures will not be as significant as the United States market because it takes time to build.

“While you have a strategy for Europe and Japan we need to get to North America with cash because the risk that you now run is that if you don’t drive the market the airline seats are going to be empty, and if this happens the airlines will shrink,” he said.

He explained that while Air Jamaica was trying, the national carrier only ran loads of 60 per cent during the winter.

“You will end up next winter with a lot less airlift,” he said, adding that this will affect the hotels, restaurants and duty free shopping.

He also warned that the sector could be forced to rotate and lay off staff if nothing was done to pull more visitors to the island.

Diana McIntyre-Pike, chairman and CEO of Countryside Community Tourism Network in Mandeville, questioned why funds could not be provided from the tourism enhancement fund to finance marketing of the destination.

But JHTA President Horace Peterkin pointed out that the purpose of the fund is really to fix up the destination.

However, some of the hoteliers in the room said that this was not working.

“What we have here is an emergency situation, because it is not business as usual,” said Kerr.

Meanwhile, Peterkin said Jamaica will need 150,000 to 160,000 more visitors than last year, given the number of new rooms that have been built.