Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett. - File

WESTERN BUREAU: AS THE indicators point to the impossibility of double-digit growth for the 2008 tourist arrivals, Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett has finally admitted that he will have to revise his earlier predictions.

The minister, who had projected an ambitious 13.5 per cent growth for this calendar year, says he has been forced to revise the stopover projections as a result of the meltdown in the United States and other unforeseen eventualities affecting the industry.

recalibrated figures

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner on Friday, Bartlett said that he had recalibrated the figures to an estimated six to eight per cent growth after consultation with key players in the market and examining the trend for the shoulder months of September and October.

"The market, as we speak, remains a growth market, but at a lower rate than previously," said the minister, adding that the number of visitors from the US was still performing at over three per cent, bearing in mind that the US was down six per cent at the end of last year. "Canada is pacing at 23 per cent, the UK and the Caribbean and Latin America are also growing, while Japan is down, and so is Italy," Bartlett reported.

Optimistic about stabilising the growth prospects in the United States, the tourism minister said that by next month, the country should have a better indication of the condition of its number-one foreign-exchange earner.

News of the reduced tourist-arrival projections has not gone down well with Opposition Spokesman on Tourism, Dr Wykeham McNeill, who said the projections were unrealistic in the first place.

"When the minister made his announcement in January, I went to the finance committee of the House of Representatives and I said to them from day one, 'Let us be more realistic about our projections'," McNeill told The Sunday Gleaner. He said he was brushed aside repeatedly by Minister Bartlett over the ensuing four months. Bartlett insisted, "We are going to get 13.5 per cent."

McNeill said a more realistic figure would have been eight to nine per cent. Furthermore, the writing was on the wall that storm clouds were hovering over the US economy in the forms of a recession and increasing fuel prices, and a general election in the air. "The difference between 13.5 per cent and nine per cent was the total earnings of sugar for 2006," McNeill stated, noting that the miscalculations could badly affect the Ministry of Finance's computations.

growth will remain flat

According to the opposition spokesman, the country will get more visitors than it did last year, but growth will remain flat.

However, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, Wayne Cummings, did not share McNeill's view of unrealistic projections and has come to the defence of Bartlett.

"The projections were not too high, owing to what was happening in the market at the time. No one could have envisioned what has taken place in the US," he said, adding that he too had changed his outlook, given a number of factors.