Director of Tourism Hits Back at UWP Spokesman

‘Tourist Board Not Partisan’.

DIRECTOR of Tourism, Louis Lewis, has responded to the UWP candidate for Anse la Raye’s comments that the island’s cruise sector has been under-performing since last June.

During a press conference held on Wednesday this week, Dominic Fedee called out the Saint Lucia Tourist Board (SLTB) while dismissing Minister for Tourism, Lorne Theophilus’ earlier pronouncement that the tourism sector had made significant gains in all categories over the past four years.

“The industry has been under-performing since June of last year,” Fedee said on Wednesday. “The Caribbean had a significant year (while) Saint Lucia remains at the bottom of the pack.”

Fedee also questioned why cruise arrivals figures were left out of the SLTB’s tourism figures released recently, stating that the SLTB needed to do a better job at reflecting the true picture of the all-important sector’s performance.

On Thursday, Lewis shot back, describing Fedee’s comments as “clearly disingenuous” and “mischievous”, telling the media that the SLTB’s role does not include skewing the figures to suit any political party’s agenda.

“Mr. Fedee made some comments that questioned the integrity of the Saint Lucia Tourist Board,” Lewis said. “I want to say from the outset that it is not our business to be partisan. The (Tourist Board) is an institution established by the State. Most of the staff here have worked across administrations and we’ll continue to work in the best interest of the mandate that we’ve been given.”

Lewis added: “To make statements that surround the fact that we may be ‘cherry-picking’ some of the data we put out clearly depicts (Fedee’s) intention to mislead the public with regard to the information that we disseminate.”

The Director of Tourism said Fedee’s claim that Tourist Board deliberately withheld statistics on the cruise industry’s performance was baseless. He said 677,000 cruise passengers visited Saint Lucia last year, reflecting one of the best performances in the sector.

Lewis also cited these passenger arrival figures for the previous four years, saying that the cruise sector had recorded consistent growth over the past four years: 571,000 (2012), 594,000 (2013), 641,000 (2014) and 677,000 (2015).

“I think it’s shameful when a State-run institution is brought into the fold of political fray,” Lewis said.

Lewis said Fedee’s comments were “very disturbing” since the data being questioned is available publicly and easily verifiable. Apart from the Tourist Board, he said the data can also be obtained from the government’s statistics department, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the Caribbean Tourism Organization, and on the Internet.

According to Lewis, while the regional average of 7% for the tourism sector’s performance would have dwarfed Saint Lucia’s 2.8%, that regional average was mainly due to high performances by four key destinations, namely Bahamas, Haiti, Cuba and Aruba, where double-digit growths were recorded.

Another factor, he said, was that while Saint Lucia lost about 10% of its room capacity (or about 400 rooms) due to some properties closing down, the aforementioned countries’ room capacity went up. Nevertheless, Lewis added, there was a 12% increase in expenditure and the demand for Saint Lucia as a destination remains strong.

Lewis said cruise arrivals data was left out in tourism statistics released by the Tourist Board earlier this year because that data was not available at the time of publication. However, he said that data has since been tabulated and confirmed that there has been a dip in cruise arrivals for January and February this year.

Between January and February last year, cruise arrivals stood at 204,000 passengers. However, that figure dropped significantly to 175,000 passengers during the same period this year. Lewis attributed the drop to a reprogramming of routes by cruise lines.

“There are a number of market activities that take place which affect the cruise (sector),” Lewis explained. “The cruise lines make decisions on their itinerary 18 months ahead of schedule and this is usually published.”

While Lewis did confirm that there will be an overall decrease in cruise arrivals for the 2015/16 season, he said the 2016/17 season is expected to record a better performance based on factors such as the number of vessels expected, their capacity and average loads.

Lewis cited destinations such as Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Martinique where negative growth in tourism performance was recorded. He accused Fedee of playing politics with the figures.

“I think there was a deliberate manipulation of data for a particular agenda,” Lewis said. “In 2015, Saint Lucia grew by 2% overall. In the first four months of the year, we were posting record numbers. As a matter of fact, there were six months in 2015 in which we had the best performances for those months ever. That remains a fact.”

Comprehensive figures for the tourism sector’s performance for the first quarter of this year will be released next month, Lewis said.