For a while it seemed our promised interview just wasn’t going to happen. Several times appointments had to be postponed in favor of more pressing matters, some life and death situations. What follows took three sittings, during breaks in the most recent session of Parliament.
STAR: For a while it seemed we were doing well against COVID-19, then suddenly the figures started mounting. How depressing has that been?
PM: Not enough to deter me and our team. We were always well aware of the dangers, which is why we continued to remind our people to be on guard—even when we had no active cases. Our proximity to Martinique and Guadeloupe made us especially vulnerable, particularly after they were hit by the so-called second wave. We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw the negative changes. I’ll admit it can be frustrating for the government, our CMO, the health department and other front-liners when it seems, despite our efforts, people continue not to take COVID-19 more seriously. We’ve seen the effects when the protocols are followed and when they’re not, but some people just don’t seem to understand it’s a life and death matter.
STAR: We’ve recently been hearing about the possibility of a vaccine by year’s end. How optimistic are you about that?
PM: I always was confident the scientists would find a way out of this. So the vaccine is great news. There’s now light at the end of a very dark tunnel. It’s wonderful to know the world will not fall apart after all. My dream is that before long we’ll be back to near normal.
STAR: How has COVID-19 impacted the tourism revenue?
PM: We’ve taken a huge hit. It has been devastating. But now we are seeing signs of an uptick. It made tourism possible the moment countries adopted a policy of quarantining to protect their own borders. The United States never closed its doors. The UK was trending well, then unexpectedly decided to shut down its borders. Canada, Europe have followed suit. So, clearly the fall-out has been significant. Sadly, we are now realizing tourism is an industry not easily be substituted. Even throughout the region there’s no travel. The damage has been grave but if we can stick to the protocols I think we can have the industry back, perhaps stronger than it’s ever been.
STAR: How is your government helping businesses survive this pandemic?
PM: Clearly working with the banks on getting the loans moratorium has been a lifesaver. Two, the deferment of taxation. But most important for everyone is to get the economy going. We have seen the plan of re-opening our economy working. It has not solved all our the problems, of course, but many businesses have been able to see recovery and are learning to co-exist with COVID-19. We’ve helped with staffing in terms of NIC support for workers, the informal sector support for the workers. I keep saying to the businesses that it’s not just about re-opening their doors. The stimulus comes in the way of construction, the call centers, getting the hotels to re-open, all of that is about getting money back into peoples’ pockets. This helps with the purchasing of goods. It’s one thing to say you are open but if people didn’t have the income to make purchases opening would be pointless. Our strategy has worked. However, we still have a way to go to see the entire re-opening of the economy.
STAR: How do we get Saint Lucians back into the work force? And what are you doing for employment of the youth?
PM: Some businesses chose to pay-off people and some who never saw the opportunity for a career change are doing so now. Some hotel workers have gone into call centers, call center workers have gone into the hotels, cruise ship workers have come back and have been a godsend for the hotel sector that now has a bigger pool of trained personnel. We see people being quite creative and opening their own businesses. Also there’s the money we put into the SLDB, the SMEs, the tax incentives. The online training programs now allow access to online learning. In life there will be unavoidable crises. You either give up and get buried or you make adjustments and emerge stronger than before. In terms of young people, the COVID-19 crisis has shown that the digital economy is coming. Their awareness of it, their embracing of it is huge. For example, Microsoft says all persons working at home now will continue to do so post-COVID. Jobs that may not have been available to Saint Lucians pre-COVID will be post-COVID. Equally, a person who is now going to work remotely, which has now become a common term, all of a sudden Saint Lucia becomes a great option to work in.
The vision we have had as a government is to have a globally competitive education system, so that an international student being here loses nothing by being educated in Saint Lucia and similarly Saint Lucians are thinking in a global context. Affordable quality healthcare, security for all, together with infrastructure; those four things are what’s required for us to take advantage of this working remotely. Then there’s our Headquarters Act. All of these things were done before COVID. So we are way ahead of the game; the key is to keep that momentum. What I want to say to Saint Lucians is, gain market share. Crying and lamenting and regretting, will get you anywhere. Fix things that require fixing, be self-confident, grow and gain market share globally. We will have moved up the ladder significantly despite this crisis.
STAR: Since we’ve realized tourism is not the Teflon industry some imagined it was, what steps have you taken to diversify the economy?
PM: For some people, diversification means less emphasis on tourism and more on something else unidentified, as if it has to be one or the other. You cannot easily replace tourism. There is no other industry available to us that generates the foreign exchange, jobs and linkages to other sectors of the country. Tourism does not displace agriculture. Tourism has not displaced manufacturing; tourism does not displace international financial business, and it doesn’t displace call centers. The locations hotels go in do not inhibit other sectors. The more hotel rooms you have the stronger your manufacturing becomes; the stronger your agriculture becomes; the stronger your call centers and financial businesses become and the stronger your orange economy becomes. It’s more exposure. The ideal is to take greater advantage of the opportunities tourism provides.
So you want to develop a manufacturing sector that eventually reduces its dependence on tourism. I always use Tortuga Rum Cakes as a classic example: they started selling to one hotel, then it was to multiple in Cayman. Then it became linked to financial business; you saw mail orders and then it became available in duty-free shops in the Caribbean, cruise ships and now globally.
Secondary home markets: now here’s something most people don’t talk about. In 2009 when we had the financial crisis, we asked ourselves: Who are we in Saint Lucia? The answer was that we represent romance. Everything you do in Saint Lucia oozes romance. Whether it’s Friday Night in Gros Islet, a sunset cruise to Soufriere, walking Tet Paul, going to a rum bar or going to one of our restaurants. Everything is so romantic. I mean, Saint Lucia is just such an incredibly beautiful island and in the minds of millions out there an unbelievable place to fall in love. We realized also that romance was recession proof. So a person who is going to get married is going to spend the same amount of money regardless of the global economy. A person who is looking to take someone out on a date is going to spend money; a person who is looking to make up with someone is going to spend money. In comparison to a family vacation which is an annual trek, depending on what is happening economically, they may travel further and spend less. So within tourism now there is a tremendous amount of diversifying we can do. The Gros Islet sports academy is diversification; we see that there is an opportunity for sports tourism.
The Headquarters Act is an example of the diversification of our tourism product. We are now diversifying from the persons who just come here for a quick vacation and that’s the most readily available tourist commodity in the world. So we must pick out niches and ensure that we diversify. Diversification comes from strengthening all sectors of your economy.
STAR: How do you think Biden’s win will affect travel from the US?
PM: I think that Governor Cuomo’s strategy on how he is dealing with COVID will probably become U.S. policy. That is, countries that are in Level 1 or less will be able to travel back and forth without having to go into quarantine. Countries that are in Level 2 or higher will have to go into quarantine. I think that pretesting of persons travelling will become standard now, both domestically and internationally. More than likely the Democrats are going to pass the largest stimulus bill known to man. So that’s going to put a tremendous amount of liquidity in the market place. The prognosis is that the US dollar is going to weaken and that’s good news for us. Already we are seeing that the pound was 1.33 today. The stronger the pound gets, the more goods are going to come here. The stronger the pound and other currencies get to the U.S. dollar, the more expensive it becomes for Americans to travel. And because we are pegged to the U.S. dollar we always remain on parity. I think that the prognosis is good.
STAR: What are our expectations for 2021 and the immediate future of the travel industry?
PM: The tourism industry has shown its resilience. We’ve had SARS, global wars, world recessions, climate change and now we have the pandemic. It’s not to say that we did not have economic fallout but persons are no less inclined to want a vacation and travel. Globally we see how big this industry is. So we talk about the planes that are flying, tourism plays a significant role in allowing those planes to fly. The airports and all the services that are being provided, the ability for people to meet and I mean, as successful as zoom has been there are things we realized that can’t be replaced. Human contact is absolutely engrained in us as a people.
This cannot be replaced, a vacation, sitting down at a bar and having a drink and meeting somebody. Zoom is too limiting in that regard. Is it is a good immediate substitute? Sure. Have we gotten better at understanding and embracing that technology? Yes! But to say it’s going to replace what travel and tourism does? It’s stronger than ever before. What we need to do as a people is to be proud of what we have to offer and to continue to improve on the quality and the efficiency and more importantly, the authenticity of what we offer. So village tourism is heading in the right direction.
STAR: As we approach the end of 2020 how do you feel your administration has performed?
PM: I am very proud of the plan that we had coming into government. I think because of that it has allowed us to see some of the successes we are seeing. Do I wish some of the things could have happened faster? Yes, I do. I am very comforted that the conversations I am having now within the civil service and the government are much better. We are now starting to speak the same language on things that make a difference. This is a huge change from what previously existed. There is much more buy-in that we have ever seen before. I am just grateful that they gave us the opportunity. Things will be much easier the second term and that’s when people are going to see a huge change in the country. A lot of the foundational stuff on the ground that people don’t normally see has been changed.
STAR: Would you do anything differently?
PM: The one criticism I get about my government concerns communication. That has been a challenge and continues to be, so maybe more emphasis on communication. People may not have seen me as much, or heard me as much, as they’d want to. But that’s because I was just so involved in trying to understand and to get a true picture of where we were as a country. From that perspective, I think a second term will be much easier. We certainly have learned a lot about how important communication is.
STAR: How much have you and your government learned from 2020?
PM: You can survive! The strategy of staying in front of a crisis is an important lesson. Don’t allow the crisis to overwhelm or drown you. Let’s learn to surf the wave, don’t let the wave bear you. I think the other thing is that, for the most part, Saint Lucia listened. There is a silent majority in this country that speaks volumes. As useful as is social media, it is not necessarily reflective of the reality. Going house to house and meeting people is vital. And natural. Our people are hardworking, resilient. I am seeing a greater sense of people knowing things, that we can build a better Saint Lucia if work toward achieving our dreams—together!
This article first appeared in the November 2020 edition of the STAR Monthly review, available here: https://issuu.com/starbusinessweek/docs/star-monthly-review-01
