Wayne Cummings ... hoteliers have to protect their businesses in the face of rising costs.

Dionne Rose, Business Reporter

Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association (JHTA) presi-dent, Wayne Cummings, has defended the organisation's endorsement of a proposed rate of US$10 a night energy surcharge by the island's hotels, saying that the move is critical in the face of rocketing prices being driven by a ballooning oil bill.

"The fact that we are doing something to protect our businesses must have primacy," Cummings told Sunday Business.

The JHTA's council last month agreed to recommend the surcharge, with implementation to coincide with yesterday's start of the winter tourist season.

The charge, however, is optional rather than mandatory, but it was not clear yesterday how many hotels have decided to introduce the fee. The JHTA's proposal, however, has caused consternation in some markets.

Legal implications

For instance, the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) warned last week that the imposition of the surcharge could have "logistical and legal implications" it stopped short of saying that it could mean British tourists staying away from the island. A little over 175,000 British tourists, accounting for about 10 per cent of stopover arrivals, visited Jamaica last year.

While Jamaica enjoys a year-round tourism business, the bulk of its visitors, about 70 per cent of whom are Americans, come in the winter. The new Tourism Minister, Edmund Bartlett, has been anticipating record arrivals this season. It is not clear whether Bartlett has factored in the JHTA's proposed energy surcharge and the impact that it is likely to have on the critical North American market.

In Europe, though, the head of the Jamaica Tourist Board's office in London, Elizabeth Fox, was making it known that the surcharge was not a government tax, but a private sector imposition.

"Our role is to let the market know what the hotels decide," she told journalists in London. "We can advise the hotels as to what we think they should do, but ultimately it's their decision."

The JHTA's Cummings explained that the association agreed on the room charge as a result of the findings of a study showing how rising oil prices had affected hotel input and other operating costs.

"What we decided to do was to create an overarching concept that the members could work within," Cummings said. "What we do is set out that they could look to implement between zero and US$10, which means that they can choose not to do it."

Cummings conceded that there could be market resistance to the charge, but argued that Jamaica would not be unique in imposing such a fee.

"There ... is always resistance to change," he said. "A lot of these very market places (are charging surcharges); persons are still travelling to The Bahamas, which has a surcharge in place for nearly 30 years."

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com