EDITORIAL

Foreign Music Doesn’t Draw Overseas Visitors

Monday, June 21, 2004

It is unfortunately true that all too frequently in the Caribbean we are disposed to replicate approaches or events that we see taking place in North America without apparently giving incisive thought to their feasibility here.

We have seen, for instance, certain developments in Grand Cayman that are of a scale that would require a population of more than 500,000 to sustain them, and we have seen instances of entertainment events failing because of miscalculations of scale.

Last weekend’s jazz festival promoted here by our Department of Tourism appears to fall in that category.

To begin with, the unique or “nothing like it” aspect of such promotions, critical for success, has fallen away with jazz festivals now being offered by Barbados, St. Lucia, Aruba, Anguilla, Bermuda, Jamaica, and, latterly Turks & Caicos.

At the same time, the model for jazz festival success overseas (New Orleans, Monterey, Newport and Paris to name a few) is predicated on large population bases of an affluent nature, conditions we cannot begin to match here.

To put it in a nutshell, we do not have the population to produce a substantial following for niche music.

Certainly there is the contention that these events are not designed for the “locals”; that they will drive tourism traffic to the various destinations hosting them.

But this premise has never been critically examined. On the one hand, is it likely that an American would spend nearly $2,000 for airfare, hotel, meals and other expenses to take in a musical performance he/she could see within striking distance of home, and in more comfortable surroundings than we can offer at Pageant Beach, especially when the performing artists are really not considered first-rate stars in the US anymore.

To judge by the response of the “country music stars” concerts held here in various hotels two years ago, the answer is “no”, and that from a group of devoted fans who supposedly follow their stars everywhere.

Travel industry specialists tell us that vacation planning decisions usually hinge upon time of year and price – coordination with a single event is low on the priority scale. Furthermore, a key hidden ingredient in this exercise is the obviously large investment in overseas advertising needed for these promotions – if people do not know of any event, they are not likely to come to it.

Generally, the question of cost is pivotal, and information on this is, to say the least, scant. How much is Government putting into these events? If, as reported, the outlay on our jazz festival is close to one million dollars, what are the projections on the return involved? And while the use of local groups is commendable, surely the main criterion here must be a boost to our tourism. Does the arrival data of paid travellers show such a boost?

Finally, the entire question of regional events drawing American visitors remains open to question. Travel industry specialists will also confirm that most of the visitors to these events are emigrated nationals returning home, as is the case for the Trinidad and Antigua carnivals, Barbados Cropover, St Vincent’s Vincy Mas, Jamaica Sumfest and Guyana Mashramani.

Efforts to promote tourism must be made and the Department of Tourism has to be engaged in this work, but with an economy just coming out of the doldrums, local interest and support of promotions will require that the community be assured that these events are producing value for money and that valid premises are in play.

Instead of “all that jazz” with its high attendant cost, it would have been better to spend the reported million dollars promoting the further development of the three established Caribbean-flavoured festivals in Cayman – Pirates Week, Cayfest, and Cayman Carnival Batabano.

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