While stakeholders in the tourism industry are reporting a record high of some 280 cruise ship calls for the 2009/2010 cruise season, the lack of spending among tourists on island remains a concern.
“…We’ve seen more and more ships, but the question really that is most important is how much money are tourists really spending in Dominica?” President of the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association (DHTA) and head of Nature Island Dive, Simon Walsh, told Dominica News Online (DNO).
Walsh said there has been a decrease in the number of tour counts compared to previous years and he blames the situation on hard economic times.
“The cruise ships are lowering their prices to make sure that their beds are full and they’re getting people who have less discretionary income to spend once they arrive on the island. So we’re seeing a lot more foot traffic, we’re seeing a lot more head counts; but I don’t think we’re really seeing, or if not the established tour companies are seeing, that increase in people going on the tours,” he said.
According to Walsh, many of the big tour operators and small operators who sell unique tours have reportedly been doing well. However, he would like to see increased figures in tourist arrivals such as those recorded five years ago.
Walsh believes the lack of air access is one contributing factor to Dominica’s poor performance in the area of stay over tourism, although he believes that Government has been doing a good job marketing the product abroad.
“We have the night landing facility coming on in the next few months, so hopefully next season we will see things like later departure times from Puerto Rico which would enable people to get to Dominica in one day and much easier than they can right now,” he added.
Walsh noted that Dominica does not provide an overall mass tourism product to attract tourists who are more experienced travelers and those with higher discretionary incomes. He pointed out that Dominica’s product is one that attracts those who are slightly better off financially and slightly more inclined to travel.
“When you go to the trade shows, whether it’s the World Travel Market in London or IPB in Germany or the dive shows in the U.S or the adventure shows in New York and San Francisco that the private sector and public sector are attending, you get to see a little bit of the tourist’s interest in Dominica, and they’re not the people who want to lie on a beach … play in the casino or go dancing all night long. Our kind of tourist we’re marketing the nature island to is the eco-tourists. They’re not looking for the casinos … so I don’t think you’ll find not having a casino turns off many tourists,” he explained.
On the contrary, the tourism official explained, the typical tourist who wants to visit Dominica would take part in activities such as dive and wellness tours, yoga, bird watching and hiking. He further explained that tour operators in the United States and Europe were looking for tours which were easy to organize and where the client could arrive in one day.
“We still right now cannot get those groups in Dominica – the eco-tourist groups and the adventure tour operators … that’s what’s holding us back. Every time you attend these shows there are people saying ‘we want to come to Dominica, we’ve seen to in the magazine, we’ve seen it on the internet … they’ve heard about these products … They want to come down, They want to bring a group but the air access issue is preventing them from organizing those groups,” he said.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Combined Taxi Incorporated and Treasurer of the Dominica Taxi Association, Francisco Esprit echoed Walsh’s point. He told DNO that there has been an improvement in the number of cruise ship calls, but fewer visitors to tourist sites on the island.
In the 2007/2008 cruise tourism season there were 210 cruise ship calls compared to this season with 280.
“This year we find a lot of passengers are coming off the ships … we have less tours in terms of persons actually purchasing tours from the ship before they get off. From the Combined Taxi perspective, where we cater for persons who come off the ship and look for independent tours, we find there is a decrease in the number of persons seeking those tours this year and then the prices they’re willing to pay, but it’s not a very significant decrease as compared to last year,” Esprit explained.
Esprit recommends the development of a mechanism to encourage persons to spend more in Dominica. He pointed to a recent study which cited Dominica as one of the countries with the lowest per capita expenditure of cruise ship visitors.
“I think we need to put our heads together and come up with certain strategies and activities so that the tourist can spend much more here,” he added.
Edona Jno Baptiste – News Coordinator/Reporter
In Polly Pattullo’s well researched book ‘Last Resorts’ which examines the impact of tourism on the Caribbean (Second Edition, published in 2005 in the U.K. by Latin America Bureau), she reveals that the amount of money spent by one stay-over visitor is, on average, equal to that spent by more than 200 cruise ship visitors. Since the credit crunch over a year ago that figure has no doubt exaggerated further. Whilst a handful of businesses do benefit from the cruise ship visits, what we may not appreciate is that the cruise ships need the destinations far more than the destinations need them. In Dominica, for instance, they collect all the water they require for their entire journey, with our limited resources we accept and must dispose of their waste – probably for free, and when visitors book onshore activities through the cruise line, the cruise line takes a larger share of the tourist $s than the service provider. We should stop begging the cruise lines to visit our shores and let them instead beg us for the privilege of allowing them to dock. I also believe that we should charge each visitor a US$10.00 environmental levy just to set foot on Dominica. This would be far more cost effective than the $5 site fees wich need an army of staff to effect. This income could go straight to the Forestry Division which provides the necessary stewardship over our natural inheritance.
I really hope that the Ministers of Gov’t of Dominica read the comments
some of the comments i read are so true . The economy has trickled
down to the tourist industry. The cruise ships makes it affordable for almost
anyone to travel some of the people who travel are not neccessarily people who can afford
to spend. However when you visit the islands they all carry the same souvenirs
I am a Dominican living abroad who have cruised many times and visited Dominica
I was happy and excited to be home I bragged about my county to many guests
but at the dinning table some loved Dominica for it’s natural beauty those who critiized Dominica
talked about the town of Roseau how dirty the drains were …and i saw it myself
and i was a bit disapointed. But hell i defended my country but it did hurt…… some talked about being charged to use a rest room
I should conclude: Attraction, Attraction, Attraction. If the pull factors are strong the tourist will come. and they will spend.
You can build the biggest international airport it aint gonna attract tourist if there are no attractions and resorts/hotels to put them.
Orlando Florida has no Beach or mountains or volcanoes but yet it is on of the largest tourist destination in the US and is not because they have an International airport.
The airport can be built later to accommodate the increase transportation once the pull factors are there.
If i know i am going to have a blast when i get to my destination i will take whatever means of transportation to get there, because it will be worth the hastle.
Remember 2008 Reunion. If we can maintain traffic like that at least 6 months out of the year then Inter Airport will become feasible.
feases on the streets ….. i am shivering
they pass on a bus…
Dominica can do so much better in terms of entertaining the tourists but we are too backward in our thinking, everything is a problem for dominicans when tourist travel they are looking to be well entertained for example casinos, adult entertainment, shopping malls etc basically night life AND A GOOD TIME we have no life here in dominica. What we have to offer here in dominica only accounts for a small fraction of the tourist population but before anything is done in this country is a problem persons have all kind of things to say about god fairing demoralising and what not so we will mentain a backward path here while or sister islands and the world keep moving farward, as for me i will keep on traveling expirence what life is really like. WHO VEX WITH WHAT I SAY THATS IS DERE PROBLEM BUT IT IS FACTUAL
Our problems are a mixed bag. Several problems with several solutions. But which plaster do we use to stop the bleeding bo-bo?
Spend with what, so many people losing jobs in the us & uk.
Airline tourist spend more than cruise tourist. How do we expect to benefit when they come on a ship for like half a day. THen leave, we’re just a stop, no lay-over tourist, Dominica has little to NO night-life. Create things for people to do, make same day travel possible then people will come. 3 planes just to get to dominica is crazy in my opinion.
I agree 100% with LCM,
we need to put things in place to attract the tourists to COME DOWN from the ships. As soon as we figure out how to get the majority of the passengers off the ship then we can say that we need diversity in attractions.
250,300,1000 visits from ships means nothing to us if all the tourist stays on teh ship and save their money to spend in more popular islands like st.martin,st.lucia.
i have been on the bayfront on numerous occassion when the ships are their and their is no attractions to entice the ppl to come ashore apart from some vendors that are so bored they look like refugees. Ppl the tourist arent just going to let go of their hard earned money most spend yrs saving for this once in a lifetime experience so they try to maximize it..how many times u hear that on tv someone talking about st.lucia and the other islands saying that u must visit them..when last have we heard that said about d/ca?? This guy who always in the different islands for the weather channel how many times have we seen him here in d/ca…Yes we at the Fort young hotel in beautiful D/ca where its always…HOT HOT HOTT??????? come on ppl we have to be proactive..we cant wait let invite ppl like him here..thats exposure for the island.
also there used to be a band playing on the board walk at the fort young hotel..get them back..get some calypso music pumping let the visitors have fun in the sun,drink some kubuli,eat some local food and when they reach back on the ship say..”Boy truely a magnificent experience in d/ca..no other island had we seen that”
PPl lets get it together..the Gvt have done their part..we are recording more ship now lets do our part…PLEASE??????????
Tourist not spending money is the norm in dominica, there is no places for the tourist to spend their money. These are the places tourist spend their money on vacations
1..Dutyfree Shopping malls
2..Beach bars
3..Restaurants
4..Sports bars
5..Casinos
Eco-tourism is just a small part of the tourism product, and they spends the least money because they dont go for the luxury hotels, nice restaurants,bars, casinos.
When we start thinking about tourism as a business and the tourist as a customer, and start giving the customers what they want then and only then we will see the profits of tourism.
With what is going on with the economy, people are watching their spending. On a different note I am a Dominican living in Tortola working as a taxi driver, and I am glad that this topic on Tourism is on DNO, because yeaterday while at the cruise ship dock on Tortola, I overheard a Tourist telling another taxi triver about the condition that Dominica is in. I was caught by surprise by what I heard and had to join the conversation. the tourist said that there was feases water and feases running in the drains of Roseau. I tried defending my country, by telling her that she had mistaken the country with Dominican Republic, but she said no, It was Dominica. I then ask her to discribe the place where she went, and when she told me that the ship had docked on the pier at the Dame Eugenia Charles Boulevard, I knew she was not mistaken.
I say all this to say, that we must be mindful of the conditions of the drains in Roseau, especially during the Tourist season. This does not paint a pretty picture for our country. One Tourist can make things bad for a country. Just imagine this tourtist talking about Dominica to another taxi man in another country, what do you think will happen when she goes back to her country? She might want to discourage other tourist who might want to visit DOminica.
Been on vacation to Dominica and there’s nothing much to do, each tourist vendor sells the same thing, poor quality, cheap looking for exhorbitant prices. The same tablemat in Roseau for US$15, in the Carib Territory US$25.00. Of course I just walked away. You see the same things in the different islands. A dominica ruler for a child – a dept store in Dominica $2.00, on a tourist stand US$5 – US$10. Why should a tourist shop in Dominica? We can already get everything cheaper and better quality. In short stop the cheating, buck up on service (extremely poor), and market quality products. By the way, I had planned to spend!
I think the schedule of cruise ship arrivals to Dominica should be looked at also.
From what I see Dominica is positioned for the most part at the end of the cruise ship routing.
By this point these tourist have blown most of their disposal funds on the Islands they visited before arrive in Dominica.
Dominica should negotiate to be the second or third Island visited in Cruise ship schedules.
well Its hard times people, and its hard times every where, most people that come to the caribbean on cruise ships are retireries, they use their retirement money to take a cruise and relax, A few years ago they spend more, but now they hold on to their money because they are getting less money now, some of them are going back to work in their old age, because things are really bad, so hold on Dominica its hard every where but things will get better just be the best people when the tourist do come to the island and when things change they will remember and come back again.
We will see a change in tourism when we learn to think differently. We are trying to depend on eco-tourism which is not a bad thing but most eco-tourist do not spend as much as other tourist. Just like we talk about diversity in the agriculture industry there can also be diversity in the tourism industry.
Dominica has great potential for eco-tourism but we need to mix it up with the other forms of tourism.
Example: We have a place like Portsmouth with a medical school where hundreds of foreign students come every year. That is free advertising. Nothing beats word of mouth. The Cabrits area should at least have a first class golf course with a great mariner. Wealthy people looking for some fun could come to the mariner and find something to do on land. Build a few pleasure attraction (casinos, water parks, zoo with tropical funa and flora, fishing charters in the caribbean sea etc). If we can impress the students who come they intern will bring back their families and friends in addition to the advertising that we do.
We could keep most of the pleasure tourism in that part of the country. Hundreds of Jobs will be created.
Then we focus on the interior, where we have our beautiful, forest, waterfalls, volcanic features, yes volcanic features to develop as the eco-tourism sector.
Botanical Gardens could at least be developed into a Theme Park/Amusement Park with some roller-coasters and some pleasure attractions that the tourist who come on the cruise ships can go enjoy. It will be a place for locals a visitors alike to go. The great thing about the theme parks you do not have to destroy the vegetation and it could be designed with an island adventure. If the Government cannot build it bid it out to investors whoever can put up the money with some input from Government funds or local business funds. The Cruise ship themselves have all sorts of activities onboard. The tourists do not even have to leave the ship.
I could go on but to make it short, we need to think diversity and innovation and a great appreciation for what we have.
This report only proves to all of us that tourism is a very fragile industry and we must be careful not to gamble all our resources on it. We must make efforts to become self sufficient in the food that we consume especially meats. Then we can partner that with the fragile tourism. Folks let us remember Haiti one little disaster and there is no food. Let us do it the right way by preparing and making Dominica friendly to us inhabitants first and tourists second.
These tourists are just plain cheap and that’s it. No need looking for reasons. They are only island hopping on their cruise ships and spending a few hours hobnobbing in each stop-island. They are spending their monies aboard the ships for meals, entertainment, and souvenirs. We need tourists who can spend weeks and months in Dominica – then and only then we will see lots of money circulating nature’s isle – plain and simple. We need more hotels and motels and Overniters in Lovely Dominica. They are not crusing and island hopping to St Marteen. They are staying over for weeks and months in sunshine city, Philipsburg. Maybe, the inaugurating of the new Melville Hall International Airport soon, will bode well for future tourist seasons. We also need to build around the new Airport, whether it be hotels or free-duty shops and malls and boutiques and cuisines. And we need a tourist calypsonian singing tourist songs like the “ARROW” out of the “Emerald Isle”. Then we can see more Tourist Leggo in DA according to Short Shirt out of the Land of 365 beaches.
i have been hearing we will be geting night landing in a few months … can someone tell me what is a few cause it sure sounds like its a few years rather than a few months….
I think that the govt. is hanging its hat on the wrong hat rack. Only a special type of tourist comes to this island and it isn’t the beach comber. Only the tour operators are making any money on the ship people and even that business is down.
Agriculture should be in the number one spot and concessions should be available to help the farmers as well as anyone interested in getting into agriculture. Many improvements could be made in the quality and variety of food raised on this island so that less would need to be imported and there would be more available for export, and I don’t mean bananas. Just about anything can grow some place here.
If Dominica could launch a ferry sized boat that travels to other islands and even as far as Puerto Rico, I think that there would be interest by the locals as well as tourists. Or even one that travels to Miami and back making 1 or 2 other island stops and having accomodations, if it was reasonably priced..
When will the “stakeholders” realise that tourists are buying just as much and taking as many tours as say 5, 6 years ago? The problem is that there are many, many more vendors and taxis and buses today than there were 5, 6 years ago. In other words the tourist dollar is being shared amongst many many more of our people. In any event if vendors want to get a larger share of the tourist $, they must MAKE good craft items instead of selling cheap foreign trinkets at highly inflated prices. Besides the Carib craft, what else is really MADE IN DOMINICA?
i feel u wesleyman. Dominica is nice and beautiful but there is not much that attracts the international traveler.
everywhere vendor sells the same thing they could basically get china town for less money or even in st.lucia. the restaurants customer service is horrible, the convenience is just not there in dominica
thats just my opinion from my recent travel
Well since the cruise ships are lowering the prices to accommodate the less
income persons, the Tour operators can balance the equation.
….or else the results will always be negative.
Very true. Even with an international airport Dominica will have a hard time attracting anything other than eco-tourists. There are no 4 star hotels, no golf courses, no big duty free shopping malls, no fancy restaurants, no white sand beaches, and that is what lazy, fat American and British tours want. Why do you think that they go to the US Virgin Islands, St Martin, and all those similar islands. Dominica is one of the most beautiful places on earth but the average tourist does not want look at only birds and take a hike in the rainforest. Dominica will have to decide what they want. Big tourist dollars or what they have now. If Dominica wants the big tourist dollars then you are going to have to develop the island to be comparable to those attractions that the tourists want. So the question is does Dominica want to look like St Martin and are the tourist dollars worth the transformation that would need to take place on Dominica. Hey, with enough developer money you can make the island look like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. If that is what you want.
It was about time that someone recognized the naked truth, that Dominica only attracts a certain kind of tourist, the eco-tourist, and without an international airport for the tourist to spend the days necessary to explore our beautiful natural attractions,it does not matter how many cruise ships dock, at dinner time the tourist wont leave their all you can eat buffet on the ship to dine in our not so swanky restaurants.