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Bridgetown.- Prominent figures of Barbados tourism industry recommended not to slash prices to get more business in these tough economic times.
"One reason is that deep cuts can do some damage to their image as premier product/service providers. Another is that heavy discounting will mean below-par revenues for the industry and the Treasury for many years" said prominent figures  of the industry Hugh Darley and Alex Sanguinetti to  the third quarterly general meeting of the Barbados Hotel & Tourism Association held at Hilton Barbados.
Orlando-based IDEAS Inc.’s Darley, who designed amusement, rides at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, referred to the Sandals hotel chain’s 60 per cent discount for clients.
His advice to local tourism operations was: “Don’t do that deep-seated discount. You never get it back. I think it’s going to be really tough to go back to the 100 per cent Sandals branding when they did . . . sell it for 60 per cent off.”
He said tourism operations should never “attack” their price but work hard to give clients “so much extra value” for their money.
Sanguinetti, director and chief executive officer of the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association, said hotels and other tourism-related businesses should focus on giving added service and product value and avoid cutting rates.
“That means this industry and the governments are going to look forward to less revenue", he added. He said people should not be misled into thinking that Caribbean tourism was doing well simply because some countries were reporting increased arrivals.
Sanguinetti and Darley were among the people taking part in a panel discussion Surviving The Current Economic Climate. (Source: The Daily Nation)