Despite a seven person rise in stopover visitors intended to stay in hotel accommodations and a 2.7 per cent increase in average occupancy levels to 60.5 per cent last year, small hotel operators continue to be squeezed by limited access to financing, high costs of utilities and crime.

According to annual travel statistics published by the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), hotels with less than 50 rooms recorded occupancy rate of 27.6 per cent in 2010, which was lower than the 27.8 per cent the year before, while hotels with 50 to 100 rooms achieved a rate of 35.5 per cent, down from 41.7 per cent.
Hotels with over 100 rooms recorded 65.9 per cent rate of occupancy, up from 60.4 per cent in 2009.

"Occupancy levels (at smaller hotels) barely ever reached 32-33 per cent," asserted Jamaica Hotel and Tourism Association president, Evelyn Smith.
"There are several problems -- the high cost of operating a small property, including electricy, water and security. A small property needs its visitors to enjoy everything in terms of being interrelated with community."

...Jamaica "has strong potential to offer a wide variety of tourism experiences, although much of it remains unrealised. Jamaica's advantages include year-round warm weather, its association with romance, its rich culture (music), its rich fauna and flora (Jamaica reputedly has the highest number of endemic species of birds on an island in the Western Hemisphere, including 106 species that exist nowhere else), and its heritage assets".
"Major disadvantages include ineffective use of natural and cultural resources for differentiating the tourism experience (including the relative lack of UNESCO world heritage sites), a very high rate of brain drain (especially among university educated people), safety and security, high HIV/AIDS rate, and weak human resources."

The World Bank document pointed to attempts being made by smaller hotels to organise a joint purchasing of inputs (e.g. bed sheets, toiletries) meeting significant challenges related to trust issues, despite potential economic gains from collaboration...
Without effective co-operatives, not only can't small hotels lower input costs they can't pool resources to get much needed marketing.

The World Bank, in its report, suggestd that the Government "could improve access to existing funding mechanisms that promote sustainable tourism, such as the Tourism Enhancement Fund".

The report added: "Green funds could be used to increase private participation in improving sustainable tourism.
They are global, private-sector driven mechanisms to increase access to finance in providing environmental sustainability.
One example is New Venture Funds (NVF) India, an initiative by the World Resource Institute (WRI) that transfers capital to business to deliver social and environmental benefits to the "bottom of the pyramid" (SMEs) in the areas of eco-tourism, renewable energy, clean technologies, and water management...

OBSERVER ARTICLE:
www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Small-hotels-continue-to-feel-the-squeeze_90457 19

I wonder how Treasure Beach fares with respect to places in more popular areas such as Negril and Montego Bay. We have so few hotels, I wonder if there are figures for guest houses and villas or are there only numbers for small hotels.

We need a electric cooperative or we won't stay in business. Who cares if you share buying toilet tissue if you can't afford to run the fridge? This will never happen. We are stuck stuck stuck with JPS.

fees to operate a legal business!!!
fire licence
insurance
hotel licence
Health certificate
Swimming Pool certificate
Bar/Restaurant Licence
Hotel Licence
Beach License
memberships fees
Water
JPS
GCT-Tax
Employment TAX
wages
Company Licence fees
Security guards
advertising
Maintenence
Repairs
Transportation of staff
Legal fees
Accountant

and much more

and i missed
food handler licence for all the staff members
car insurance
staff insurance
in addition
staff food
uniforms for staff
Team Jamaica fees
schooling fees

Beach licence?, what is that about.
Just to operate a small guest house, what is the cost of that. with out the helpers.

Thanks Fees.

The government must employ a lot of people to keep tabs on all those payments and licenses. Wonder what this costs?

This explains the underground economy.