In fairness to the Minister of Tourism, he had announced on coming to office in January 2008, that Barbados would have a master plan for tourism, for the first time. I read last month that B$10 million would go from the consolidated fund to the tourism sector (see Nation report).
Now, I honestly think that 12 months is far too long a time for the plan to not have come to light.The Minster gave an update in last week's debate on the 2009 Estimates, indicating that he had set up the unit that will produce the plan (see Advocate report).
A few days before that, we heard about the reorganization of the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA). But, it seems hard to understand what that reorganization means when the master plan is still on the drawing board; this is like the horse before the cart.
We are also waiting for progress on the mandate given last July to the regions' ministers of tourism by the Caricom heads of government to come up with a regional marketing campaign for tourism.
Caribbean time is known to be slow and even elastic. Is that what we are having to deal with? I used to enjoy watching jello set as a boy. I could be back to doing that while the plan comes forth.
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