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MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGE : ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE CARIBBEAN TOURISM ORGANISATION, MR. JEAN HOLDER, AT THE SECOND CARIBBEAN TOURISM SUMMIT, NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS, 8-9 DECEMBER 2001

Mr. Chairman, Rt. Hon Hubert Ingraham
Distinguished Heads of Government
Secretary General of CARICOM
Ministers of Government
Your Excellencies
Tourism Public and Private Sector Colleagues

We are met today to fulfil a promise made in February this year to tackle the momentous task of “reinventing” Caribbean tourism, the economic sector, on which this Region is said to be four times more dependent for its economic welfare than any other region of the world. The events of 11th September distracted us from the task in hand and our energies since then have been focused largely on restoring matters, at least to where they were at 10th September. That is not however entirely a bad thing. The Caribbean works best in a crisis, and decisions often get taken in difficult times that formerly seemed impossible.

The first Tourism Summit held in 1992 under the leadership of the Rt. Hon Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica, focused on a single issue of creating an advertising campaign to market 33 individual, separate states, some small, some very large, some sovereign, others dependent territories of this Region, …to market them as a single destination and to create a Regional pool of funds with which to do so. It was an extremely bold initiative, based on two assumptions; the first was that the Brand Caribbean, under whose umbrella all these countries could find shelter, was the strongest image of all the images treasured by the consumer and the second was that the promotion of the Regional Brand provided a higher platform from which each state could more effectively promote itself with its national resources. This concept remains now, as then, “a consummation devoutly to be wished” and no one has a better idea how the small, and in some cases micro-states, can project their voices amid the clamour of the marketing noise being made in the world’s largest and most competitive industry. I will return to this subject a little later in this presentation.

After 1993 when the Regional marketing programme was launched, the greatest compliment paid to the Caribbean was the number of imitators, like the state of Florida, which immediately followed our example and went from strength to strength as our own efforts stumbled for lack of adequate and sustained financial support.

The mandate given for this the Second Tourism Summit which comes an entire decade after the first, is far more ambitious. We are charged to develop and cost a Caribbean development programme which addresses the fundamental weaknesses in the industry, such as product quality, Human resources, Sustained Marketing, Promotion and Public Relations, Security and air access. A certain urgency has been given to our mandate because of three developments:

  • First, there is an increased dependence on tourism which in 2000 provided gross foreign exchange earnings of US$ 20.2 billion, employs an estimated 1 in 4 persons and creates significant revenue to finance government’s social services. This increased dependence is due largely to the fact that a global economic environment has marginalized many of our traditional export sectors and seems likely to threaten new initiatives, especially our financial services. Nothing can therefore be allowed to put our tourism sector at risk.
  • Secondly, because of a growing competitive tourism environment, we have lost market-share both to countries and Regions that we had formerly perceived more as generators of business than competitors, and to new and well funded destinations with fresh and exciting man- made product, promoted aggressively around the world.
  • Third, the events of 11th September, while ultimately providing some opportunities at the expense of our competition, also showed up weaknesses in the system which predate those events.

Our analysis therefore, must begin by accepting that our problems did not start from the 11th September. The need for a Summit was established in February 2001 because of the concerns about the performance of the industry. We began 2001 expecting a difficult year for Caribbean tourism. By July, the tourism public and private sector meeting in Barbados, had declared that the industry was in crisis, the summer was slow, hotels were being closed and business was being lost in the context of a number of factors. These included; reduced airlift from Europe, an uncertain economic climate both in the USA and in other source markets in Europe, high fuel prices and currency exchange rates unfavourable to us. It is now official that the US economy has been in recession since March 2001.

Some prefer to believe that we are simply experiencing a down period in just another boom and bust cycle. In fact, even since the events of 11th September, I sense a feeling in some important quarters, that the industry is returning to normal and that the urgency for this meeting is past. There is no real understanding that we might not be able to hold on to that business which has come our way, simply because other competing places now seem unsafe. As the memory of 11th September recedes in the wake of an improved international situation, we can expect that our competitors who before then, were taking our business, will be back, more aggressive than before.

The truth is that for Caribbean tourism, returning to normal is a totally undesirable state and it is important to convince our political leaders that Caribbean tourism is in a state of crisis……a crisis that is as much social as economic, the causes of which reach far back into Caribbean social history.

Global tourism is in a period of transition and Caribbean tourism has neither dealt adequately with its past nor equipped itself for the changed environment of the future. Its sustain ability and competitiveness can therefore only be assured by a radical change in thinking about the industry and by the courage and political will to take the steps necessary to restructure and modernize it.

I have been asked to address the issues and challenges that face Caribbean tourism in the 21st Century. I intend to focus on six areas of challenge and to point some solutions which I hope can be followed up.

Perhaps the first and the greatest of the challenges we face is the reluctance of Caribbean people to embrace either change or the need for change.

Historically, the Caribbean is a place to which things happen socially and economically. We are not revolutionaries, which is what makes the Haitian slave revolt of 1791 and the Cuban revolution of 1959 such extraordinary and historic events. Both countries have paid dearly for this uncharacteristic behaviour. We tend to be conservative and long suffering which, in no small measure, contributes to our being an area of peace and tranquility. Therefore, given the considerable and growing dependence on tourism, the news that all might not well, is news we would prefer not to hear. Who wants to hear that the goose that lays the golden egg could be sick?

The second challenge tourism people face, is how to create a proper understanding of the tourism industry in either economic or social terms.

The great and learned Henry Kissinger, in an address to the Caribbean Hotel Association in this very city, confessed that he thought that all these people coming on planes and ships and spending money, all happened by itself. He is not alone in that fallacy. Tourism people are often seen by economic planners as pursuing a soft option in the struggle for development.

In reality, tourism is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon in social and economic terms. It is intrusive socially, culturally and environmentally and has as much potential for irritating a host population, as for creating positive human inter-action. This aspect and the reasons for it, are frequently ignored both by the political directorate and the tourism practitioners.

They are constantly baffled by the fact that in spite of the demonstrable positive macro-economic impact of the industry, social and community considerations continue to raise their heads and to create negative attitudes that intrude everywhere. They influence the quality of service and sometimes frustrate the plans of governments and investors for tourism development.

The industry’s reaction is one of denial. They are people who refuse to accept that Caribbean tourism workers or the local communities whose expectations from tourism are not met, or who do not perceive that its benefits are equitably distributed, could be dissatisfied with the industry. The approach adopted by both public and private sector, is to repeat as often as possible, statements about the economic benefits of tourism, ignoring some of the cultural ramifications and emotions which are deeply embedded in the historical experience of the Region.

What accounts for the negative attitudes we often witness?

One reason is that tourism in colonial and post-colonial societies, has, for an entire century, been seen by the vast majority of local populations as continuing many of the social traditions of the plantation economy.

The origins of tourism in Jamaica in the 1890s is instructive. It was a by-product of the American banana trade driven by Lorenzo Baker’s United Fruit Co which operated some sixty steamers, ferried visitors to and fro between Jamaica and the USA and built modern facilities for their guests in Jamaica. On the other side of the Atlantic the Imperial Line of Elder, Dempster and Co, trading in bananas with the United Kingdom also advertised vacations to Englishmen whom they brought in their ships to the Region. Many of these early visitors, especially those from the Southern States of America brought social and racial attitudes which were grafted onto those of existing colonial society. What limited research has been done about the history of Caribbean tourism is replete with stories of the resentment felt by locals at the beginning of the 20th century at the insensitive treatment meted out to them by visitors. 60 years later, following the Cuban revolution and the dwindling of Cuba’s tourism industry, tourism spread across the rest of the Region, but perceptions about its negative social consequences persisted then and even into the present, and cause it to receive a less enthusiastic embrace than is warranted, given its economic benefits.

The situation is not helped when local people cannot get access to beaches or are excluded, sometimes for good reason, from tourism facilities, or see goods and services pushed beyond their reach due to competing tourist demand. These are ghosts which must be exorcized if a modern tourism sector is to take hold in the Region and gain popular acceptance. The solutions to many of these matters are not within the remit of Ministers of Tourism.

The man in the street does not really connect emotionally with information about indirect economic benefits, as portrayed by official statistics such as foreign exchange earned, employment generated and revenue collected by governments. If attitudes and behaviours towards tourism are to be fundamentally changed, local people must see themselves as participating more significantly as entrepreneurs or as employees who have real opportunities for career advancement without glass ceilings.

This will require more than public relations programmes, although some of that is necessary. Government tourism plans must recognize that a successful tourism development plan has to deal with social, cultural, environmental and health issues , as well as with economic benefits. Government must be seen to be consulting the welfare of the citizens in those small, but personal areas, which are of concern to them. The plan must be proactive in ensuring that benefits are shared as widely as possible.

An important component of the plan must be a comprehensive system of tourism education which begins in the schools at primary level and goes through the secondary and tertiary levels. This is not to be confused with hospitality training. It’s objective should be to change behaviours, imparting knowledge about the origins, social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts of tourism and inculcating the multifarious skills required to plan, execute and implement a modern tourism industry. The fascinating history of tourism needs to be taught in our schools and universities. Getting this done might involve some political pressure from above, in the face of the traditional conservatism of the Region’s otherwise excellent educators.

Ultimately Caribbean people must come to see Caribbean tourism as their thing and themselves as tourists in an industry enriched by linkages to their agriculture, industry, culture and history. This adds a social dimension to all the economic reasons demanding that we fast track the development of the intra-Caribbean tourism and diaspora market segments, as well as focus more of our tourism policy on the development of attractions, which possibly provide the best entry point into the industry for the largest number of locals.

A great deal of the action needed to achieve these changes goes well beyond the daily remit of the Ministry of Tourism.

The third challenge about which I wish to speak is the Caribbean’s lack of control over its tourism industry which is the main plank of its economy. There probably is no other Region which is so completely vulnerable.

Like export agriculture on which we subsisted for centuries, buttressed by a system of preferences now about to expire for ever, tourism is not an autochthonous plant, sprung as the Ancient Greeks would say, from our soil.

In spite of our excellent natural resource endowment for tourism, the industry is as much an import as the goods and services worth billions of dollars we still import annually to keep it going.

Tourism grew in the Caribbean, some say like Topsy, in the 1960s, 70s and 80s due to the entrepreneurship and the enterprise of the private sector, with a focus on the project, rather than the country. The industry exhibited the inevitable lack of overall physical, infra-structural and environmental planning to be expected from the private sector-led development of the time.

Furthermore, the entrepreneurship was almost entirely foreign in respect of land-based tourism and totally foreign in respect of cruise tourism. History must record the Caribbean’s appreciation and gratitude to those great Jamaican entrepreneurs who demonstrated that Caribbean people could create Caribbean Brand Hotels which rival all comers for innovation and the quality of the product offered. Generally speaking, there has been a drought of such people native to the Region. It is amazing that no Caribbean based entrepreneur saw and took advantage of the great potential that a group of islands arranged geographically as ours are, and situated in idyllic natural surroundings, offered for creating the world’s perfect cruise destination.

It is often said that a country should prepare for food security in times of crisis, by growing a significant proportion of its own food. What is the Caribbean’s tourism security position in respect of its most vital industry?

Here is a reality check in 2001 one hundred years after tourism began in the Region with respect to our control of the industry and therefore our ability to sustain it in the face of difficult external circumstances:

  • Airlift is critical to the existence of a tourism industry. However only a minuscule amount of the tourism traffic that comes to the Region comes in aircraft owned by or under the control of companies or states in the Region. Probably less than 20%. When the dust settles after the impacts of the events of 11th September, no one knows what will the final result for a number of the major carriers on which we depend so heavily.
  • The Caribbean is the world’s premier cruise destination, accounting for 48% of all bed-days marketed out of North America in 2000. I am not aware that there is a single cruise company that is owned by any Caribbean entrepreneur or that brought any one of the 14.5 million passengers that entered our ports in 2000.
  • European tourism now accounts for 25 % of our business and most of it is packaged, promoted and sold by Tour operators now acting as a small and powerful consolidated group. They determine the price of our product and whether or not we appear in their brochures. They and wholesalers in other parts of the world, also own many of the travel agencies selling vacations. They control blocks of seats on the airlines serving the Region.  

Many of the Tour Operators own and are vertically integrated with hotels in a few of our countries as well as in a number of competing destinations. They have an obligation to fill their rooms first and can do so at a very competitive price which adversely affects their competition.

  • It is almost certain that the process of mergers and consolidations among all the above mentioned corporations, already taking place, will intensify as a direct result of the financial instability caused by the events of 11th September. This will present this Region with even more monolithic entities with which to do business than is presently the case. The playing field will become even more uneven than it currently is. Small Caribbean States will have either to do tourism business as a block, or be overwhelmed by giant corporations as they seek to do business on their own in competition with their neighbours. They can be sure that those negotiating on the other side will suggest that the one- on- one approach is the most desirable.

This is the normal to which many of us are content to return.

These realities are stated for what they are. There is no intention to denigrate or underestimate what the Region has been able to achieve through working closely with its external private sector partners, some of whom have been faithful for many years. Nor is there an unrealistic expectation that these patterns of ownership and control could be easily or quickly changed. In fact, in our present environment, we must intensify these relationships and partnerships.

We need however to recognize that in the new dispensation, companies provide service based on shareholder satisfaction, and loyalty is to be expected in the context of mutual benefits. Caribbean governments have already had this experience in dealing with countries which have been their traditional trading partners. Concepts of loyalty have been replaced with considerations of interests. The Caribbean’s age of innocence has passed.

What therefore are Caribbean states to do in an effort to ensure some measure of tourism security?

  • First, 11th September should have reinforced what was known before, that the logic of working together, accepted with respect to marketing, is now even more compelling in the area of negotiations. It is being suggested here that the Caribbean states follow the example of CARICOM in creating a professional Caribbean Tourism Regional Negotiating Machinery which can bring the unified public and private sector voice of the Region to the negotiating table whether dealing at land or at sea.
  • Secondly, the time has come for the Caribbean to play a much greater role in the business of tour operation, especially out of the European Market, and it is being proposed that a study be undertaken as a matter of urgency to explore the viability of such a proposal and the cost , manner and areas of operation.
  • Third, the Heads of Government are being requested to place on their agenda the creation of a viable Caribbean air transportation system, to supplement the services being provided by external carriers. The Caribbean carriers should be encouraged by specific policy incentives to return to the Blue Print given in the Functional Cooperation Study of 1994, as well as to rationalize services both with each other and external carriers in the context of new Hub and Spoke arrangements.
  • Heads of Government are also being requested to give serious consideration to the recommendations with respect to creating strategies for sustainable airlift, made in the circulated CARICOM study, which was prepared for this meeting and is being presented during the next two days.

The fourth challenge with which I wish to deal, is that of marketing the countries of the Caribbean as a single tourism destination.

The purpose of marketing is to create consumer demand for the product. This year when the Region was abandoned by a number of European Tour operators, it needed to take part of the blame for not creating, by adequate marketing in Europe, the demand needed to keep the planes flying. It really cannot all be left to European Tour Operators who have no special loyalty to the Caribbean. In fact, this will be even less the case, due to the consolidation and new ownership of companies which keep old names, but belong to people in countries like Germany, that have little traditional historic relationships with the Caribbean.

The tourism consumer is scattered across the entire globe and every country on the globe is competing for his business. Everyone is competing on quality or price or on both, and its an entirely free market. There are no preferences and no protection.

Imagine trying to sell one’s sugar or bananas or some of the products of our infant manufacturing industries on this basis! There is probably no other product in the world which finds itself in similar circumstances to that of tourism.

The consumer, who in many cases will not have seen the product which may be thousands of miles away, has to be reached by information, whether it comes by television, print, radio or some electronic means. From the perspective of the seller of product, this is a very expensive process and if the medium used is television it is a prohibitively expensive process. From the point of view of the consumer, the information he receives must be trustworthy, and this is where the strength of the Brand comes in.

The reality is that 5 of 29 of the 33 CTO member states( for which we have this information), spend about 68.% of the national marketing dollars and 10 spend about 80 %. It is difficult for small countries to advertise themselves in foreign markets and for small private sector establishments to do so is almost impossible. In 2000 the hard evidence was there to prove that the Caribbean’s share of voice in its marketplace of focus was at its lowest ever, and indeed much lower than that of its competition. The best product in the world cannot be sold, unless it is advertised and you will see below when I deal with the fifth challenge, that I am suggesting that our product can no longer be regarded as the best in the world.

Land-based Caribbean tourism entities have had a heavy dependence on tour operators, wholesalers, airlines and other partners to market their product for them or with them. They have made use of public relations, although not as much as they might have and they have tried to cultivate and educate the Travel Agent community to recommend their product to the consumer. Their efforts in this respect, pall before those of the cruise lines. The majority are yet to get on board with electronic marketing which holds out considerable new prospects for the future. This will be dealt with in detail by our Director of Research and Information Management later in this meeting.

Given all the above, the saving grace for all the countries in the Caribbean Region, is the strength of the Caribbean Brand. Because of the strength of the Brand, buying a Caribbean holiday is like ordering a Mercedes Benz. The consumer instantly recognizes the name and already knows the car has top quality. It remains a question of which model to buy, based on the money you have. In spite of this Mercedes-Benz will either advertise or lose market share. Coke and Pepsi know it as well. Of course nothing in these circumstances could be so damaging as to disappoint with the product.

Taking advantage of the Brand is what Regional marketing is all about. By attracting the attention of the largest number of people to the Caribbean, it reduces the size of the job each entity has to do. It is more difficult to sell country X which is largely unknown, than country X the gem of the Caribbean.

This idea is not new. The Caribbean Tourism Association was created 50 years ago by some visionaries, for this purpose. It is an idea which has had to compete against an instinctive tendency in the Region to go it alone, hopefully at the expense of one’s neighbour. Perhaps the events of 11th September will help the process of Caribbean cooperation and integration and the decision in October of this year by CARICOM Heads of Government to approve the execution of a US$ 16 million advertising programme was a matter of historic importance .

Regional marketing can work provided the following conditions are met:

  • Those countries and private sector companies which commit to supporting it, follow through on their promises to pay their contributions.
  • Those who are entrusted to implement it, do not underestimate the difficulty of ensuring that all those who invest in the process get the benefits of participation. Unless programmes are structured to address the interests of various sub-groups and disadvantaged countries, they will fail.
  • It must be a joint public/private sector partnership in which both sides bring resources to the table and the programme is jointly managed to ensure equity among the contributors.
  • Adequate funds must be made available on a sustainable basis, which permits forward planning over 3 year periods, as well as easy access to funds needed to finance tactical decisions made to respond to dynamic circumstances. There must be no bureaucratic barriers.
  • The source of government funds must be a levy on the consumer which is collected by the carrier and paid directly into a Regional fund. Every effort should be taken to get voluntary compliance by the carriers, otherwise it should be be legislated by CTO member states as one of the conditions of operating to or in the country. Clearly one of the major beneficiaries of this levy will be the carriers themselves. People attracted to the Region will be travelling on their planes and ships.

The fifth challenge is related to the Caribbean product which in recent times has been described as non-competitive, unfashionable and unprofitable.

The Tourism Product is an amalgam of many things and a very complex concept. Let us however for the purposes of this paper focus on accommodation, attractions and service quality.

The Caribbean taken as a whole from 1960, has had 50 years of world tourism leadership in offering a warm weather product. In this area it has been the team to beat. The above criticisms are therefore almost unacceptable to the Caribbean tourism industry. The world’s experience of the automobile industry should be instructive. When Henry Ford the world leader in automobile manufacturing was told that people were requiring cars in different colours, his reply was that as far as he was concerned they could have whatever colour they liked as long as it was Black Very witty, but in consumer terms very stupid. Consumer preferences forced him to change his mind. For years both the British and the Americans felt that they were world beaters in car manufacturing. The consumers voted with their feet and expressed their preference for Japanese cars in hard cash.

Currently, the quality of Caribbean tourist accommodation at the top end everywhere in the Region, is very high. There is however a very long tail with many questions being raised by consumers about the price/quality relationship, except in some of the Spanish countries. This explains their exponential growth and the interest of the investors in their countries.

Survey after survey continues to confirm that the majority of people still come to the Caribbean because of its excellent climate, its beautiful environment and its beaches and other marine resources. However as the demographics and life styles of our visitors change, it has become necessary to seek to diversify our product and the visitor’s experience.

In tourism we are in competition with the rest of the world and in respect of attractions many of our competitors set a high standard which has raised the level of expectation of our visitors. In the developed countries a great deal of capital has been invested in man made attractions like Disney World and other theme parks and it is unlikely that many of our countries could compete in this manner nor do they need to. They however need to do a great more with what they do have and there are some examples of real creativity such as the Atlantis submarine project which have captured the imagination of the tourist. The Attractions sub-sector whether it comprises events, tours, cultural and heritage or eco-tourism experiences etc, can be made interesting if the activities are well planned and have a certain authenticity. A recent survey by CTO of countries about their existing attractions revealed a lack of focus on this area with unclear ideas on what is an attraction, lack of management , inadequate systems of monitoring, an absence of standards, unclear ideas abut fee structures etc.

Attractions, unlike hotels, can be located anywhere, permitting them to benefit communities throughout the country and present governments with the opportunity to better spread the direct benefits of tourism. They enhance the opportunities to maximize the financial benefits from cruise tourism. It is therefore important that government policies and incentives be better positioned to encourage investment in this sector.

With respect to our service quality, it would not be fair to characterize it as poor across the board. In fact in some cases it is very high. Rather it is uneven, and in that respect, is often compared unfavourably with some of our competition in other parts of the world. It must always be remembered that it begins at the air or seaport. We need training and more training, but as I suggested earlier, we must also deal with some of the root social causes of inhospitable behaviour.

Above all else, we need a great deal of new investment in every aspect of our product, but we will not get it if our industry is seen by investors as unprofitable. Neither our traditional local entrepreneurs nor agencies like local pension funds and insurance companies seem to be attracted to tourism investment.

Many of our problems have arisen not because we have done anything terribly wrong, but because we have done few things new. It is simply that we have continued to do things very much as we did them before, while our consumers and their habits and their tastes have changed, just as they did with the automobile industry.

It is not what we think about our product that is important. It is what the consumer thinks and what the investors think. We need to change and to do so rapidly.

Our governments also have to confront the claims of unprofitability constantly being made by our hotel sector. Unless governments can prove that hoteliers are making lots of profits and salting them away unlawfully, they must begin to take seriously their claim that one of the major causes of their unprofitability is that the cost inputs into the industry in many of our countries, make it impossible to make a profit and to be competitive in terms of price with products in and out of the Region which are not hobbled by high cost inputs. An unprofitable industry is not sustainable and if tourism is the main prop of our economies, not only is it very bad news for our private entrepreneurs, but it must be of deep concern to Prime Ministers and Ministers of Finance.

These matters have serious implications for government policy. It becomes a matter not about if the private sector is taxed but how it is taxed. Some solution must be found which reduces the cost inputs but achieves revenues which are taxable. We also cannot avoid answering the question why investors who are going in spades to some places are not rushing to others, and what would it take to entice them.

I would suggest that a major consultation between Regional Governments and private sector is urgently needed on these issues and that it should take place in the near future..

My sixth and final challenge raises the question of what is needed to make Caribbean Tourism into a modern scientific industry in which Caribbean governments would have more confidence. How can we move it from its “meet and greet” mode to “a scientific, analytical and information-based” mode?

We are living in the midst of an information revolution. Our industry is the world’s most information based. From the marketing end our consumers who live far from our product, depend entirely on the strength and quality of our messages about the destination and the individual products for sale in that destination to make their choices. From a supply end, our planning depends on the timeliness and quality of our statistical and research information with respect to visitor arrivals, expenditure, customer trends in the marketplace, carrying capacity at the destination, host attitudes, socio-economic, cultural, environmental and health impacts inter-alia.

In the past, destination marketing, seen as the role of the Government’s national tourism Organization was separated from marketing of the individual products which also entails closing the deal or booking business seen as a private sector responsibility. Today the Internet has created the possibility of both dispensing information and closing the deal.

So how is the Region doing in the world’s most information driven industry in the midst of an information revolution?

Honestly I would give it a failing grade.

Governments which are content to receive visitor statistics 6 months to a year in arrears, clearly do not know why they are collected and are not using them as a planning tool. Such data has no tactical value Very few governments have in their national tourism entities any adequate structures to collect market intelligence, economic or social or other data related to strategic planning of the sector.

With regard to the hotel sector, although there are exceptions with respect to individual properties, it can be described as a total stranger to research. It is usually either unwilling or unable to respond to request for information and is quite content to rely on inadequate external surveys or old studies for making pronouncements about such fundamentals as its financial performance. Information which is in the public domain in any sophisticated country is regarded here as private, giving rise to suspicions of something to hide. It seeks to win arguments about competing entities without producing any hard research data on the facts of the case.

The recent crisis of 11th September exposed the lack of information systems of all those entities which screamed for relief but had no efficient or credible way of quickly computing the cost of the damaged suffered.

If we are to compete in the 21st century, all this must change and change rapidly. The answer will not lie in replacing public sector officials with private sector agencies which are equally or more obsolescent in terms of the demands of today. The Information Age demands a joint public/private sector effort underpinned by a revolution in our human resource development, the transformation of our institutions and structures and investment in the tools required in a dynamically changing environment.

CTO hopes, during the course of these two days to offer some detailed prescriptions for change.

I believe that the challenges described above constitute a serious agenda which is worthy of the time and attention of the Caribbean Heads of Government and I sincerely hope that it will not be another decade before they meet again on the issues that impact upon the industry which the late Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Rt .Hon. Michael Manley, once described as ” the very life blood of Caribbean Communities.”

I thank you.

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