The announcement of the TDC shutdown came as a surprise to many. The unions and shell-shocked TDC staff are mistaken in thinking this move is the brainchild of Tourism Minister Shamfa Cudjoe. She is merely the messenger sent by her betters to face the fury of the unions and displaced workers. This was a cabinet decision described as the result of consultations with “stakeholders and staff members.”
So it’s wrong to place such a tectonic decision at the feet of the Tourism Minister. Yet, if the TDC is being shuttered for failing the tourism industry, what then of the parent ministry where the ultimate responsibility for tourism policy and its implementation lies? By the reasoning applied to the TDC closure, the minister should pack herself and her entire ministry into the TDC boxes as well.
If we are demanding accountability from one, why not all? Isn’t the Ministry of Tourism eligible for the same scrutiny that brought the axe down on the TDC? What exactly has the ministry been doing all this time? Shouldn’t we also be asking what the THA has been doing to market Tobago and evaluating why those actions haven’t been working?
The supposed strategy behind abolishing the TDC in favour of two new entities to market T&T separately doesn’t make any sense. It’s my understanding that the THA always had responsibility for marketing Tobago. The TDC allegedly marketed T&T as a whole.
Here’s the even more confusing bit: our islands are not so culturally distinct from each other as to require two separate entities for our tourism marketing and promotion. A properly managed company should be perfectly capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Steered by astute thinking and sound policy, a tourism authority should be able to develop marketing strategies for different market segments. The Maldives is a popular destination for the international traveller. Comprising 26 atolls, some of which are dual island chains, I would be surprised if there was a specific marketing company for each of its inhabited islands.
Talk of a third local entity to establish and enforce standards across T&T’s tourism industry seems like another head-scratcher. Could that not have been done from within the TDC? Instead of improving the performance of the TDC with an up-to-date tourism policy, clear performance targets and proper resources, the government decides to mash up the institution.
If there’s one thing our governments excel at is creating institutional monsters. The TDC was itself the product of a lumbering behemoth, TIDCO. We create these monsters and, after control is lost when costs spiral without commensurate results, we head back to the lab to turn out even more monsters.
Merely dismantling an institution doesn’t remove the lethargic thought and outdated ideas that guarantee one failure after another. Putting up new signage on the same old dysfunction is beyond stupidity. We are surrounded by examples of replacement institutions that outperform their predecessors in profligate waste and incompetence.
Caribbean Airlines (CAL) and CNMG are just two Frankenstein creations that spring to mind. CNMG is the phoenix with the identity crisis that rose from the ashes of TTT. Workers of TTT were also assured they had a chance of being rehired by the new entity, but very few were brought back in. What emerged after the investment of millions of taxpayers’ dollars was neither fish nor fowl; state media with the same affinity for foreign programming as the private media houses. The only difference is CNMG is losing money faster and better than any of its private sector competitors.
After lengthy and costly consultations on the fate of CNMG, the government has yet to take action on the beleaguered media house.
The story is much the same with CAL; runaway costs, inefficiencies and no clear sighting of profitability on the horizon. The transition from BWIA to CAL caused, among many other convulsions, costly and protracted rebranding issues and tortuous compensation settlements to workers.
The PM, who will soon be off on an apparently much-needed vacation, says the reason he’s driving tourism activity is to try, in the shortest possible time, to bring about expansion in economic activity. The shutting down of the TDC is likely to have the opposite effect. It looks like it’s back to square one.
Logo, stationery, maybe even the new TDC website, will have to be redone in a painful and costly rebranding exercise. Millions more will be spent on bringing the new institutions into being. New workers will have to be brought up to speed; all this while competing destinations have long since hit their stride in their tourism marketing.
While the process limps along, the root causes of our failures in the tourism sector will remain in the shadows. The TDC could die and come back in a million different ways. Without a sound tourism masterplan reflecting the realities of today’s global market, this is an utterly pointless exercise that speaks more to our insanity than ingenuity
