THE government’s at-tempt to fund its huge deficit by raiding the tourism industry will force smaller operators such as cab and coach drivers out of business, industry leaders warn.

Garfield Williams, president of the Jamaica Union of Travellers Association (JUTA), said the tax grab would destroy his 3,000-operator organisation.

“We cannot sit idly by and see our annihilation,” he said at the Jamaica Observer’s Chairman’s Lunch on Monday. “The people making these decisions need to spend more time on the ground.”

Small traders and craft vendors will also be among the victims of the increase in General Consumption Tax (GCT) and the imposition of a new room tax by Finance Minister Peter Phillips, said Wayne Cummings, the past president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association.

“The Government believes every single person in tourism is rich,” said Cummings. “We need to be telling the government that they

need to do what’s right for the country.”

Danniel Grizzle, managing director of the Charela Inn in Negril, said half the small hotels in his town have closed in the past four years, and 30 per cent of the remainder are up for sale.

“We are still in business not because we’re profitable but because of pride,” he said.

The gathering of some two dozen tourism industry players at the newspaper’s head office in Kingston revealed deep animosity to the People’s National Party’s first budget since its election in January.

“The politicians feel they can come and rob the bank,” said their host, Sandals’ founder and Observer chairman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart.

Cummings noted that workers in the tourism trade do not have protected jobs like those in the civil service. “There’s no safety net for the private sector,” he said.

Stewart agreed, saying: “It is not only the private sector that has a belt to tighten.”

Participants warned that the government was in danger of strangling the goose that laid the golden egg.

Tourism’s impact on the economy is $228 billion or 19.5 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product), according to Observer economics columnist Keith Collister, compared to $201 billion or 17.1 per cent for the manufacturing sector.

But the sector is in fierce competition with resorts in other countries, both in the Caribbean and further afield.

“We used to be the sun destination,” said Heinz Simonitsch, former managing director of the Half Moon hotel in Montego Bay. “But the Caribbean is losing market share to other destinations.”

Of particular worry is the rise of Middle East destinations with good air links to all of Europe’s capital cities, he said.

Dimitris Kosvogiannis, country manager for Spain’s Fiesta hotel group, predicted that his homeland, Greece, would soon leave the euro currency and defaults on its debt. “After the June 17 run-off election, the government of Greece will be anti-austerity.”

The fall in the euro precipitated by a Greek pull-out would encourage Europeans to stay home while Americans and Canadians would head for the suddenly cheaper Old World for their holidays.

Another even closer threat looms if the US and Cuba reach a rapprochement, said Collister, predicting that he could see either a re-elected Barack Obama or Republic Mitt Romney making the historic move.

After a 50-year US travel embargo, the opening of Cuba would be expected to suck in curious American tourists.