The goal of this study is to inform the design of policies geared toward increasing Jamaica’s share of the revenues generated by the global tourism industry. Accordingly, the paper’s objective is twofold: to (i) identify the main drivers of competitiveness in travel and tourism (T&T) product; and (ii) quantify the relative effect of each driver. To accomplish this, the paper examines data which compare the competitiveness of the T&T products across 130 countries; in the sense of their attractiveness to potential providers and consumers of tourism services.
Under plausible assumptions, the study provides evidence that the potential benefits from improving the cost of starting a business is unlikely to justify the potential costs of attempting to do so. The key findings of the study are: (a) increasing the number of international fairs and exhibitions hosted by Jamaica is the most effective driver of competitiveness and it is more than seven times as effective as marketing campaigns; (b) lowering the cost of starting a business in the tourism industry is unlikely to improve the competitiveness of Jamaica’s tourism product; (c) relying on a more intense marketing campaign is unlikely to be the most effective response to avert the anticipated adverse effects from the UK’s proposed implementation of the air passenger duty in November 2009; and (d) offering tax incentives and grant concession schemes to business interests are unlikely to improve the competitiveness of Jamaica’s tourism product .