Audit would be useful to hospitality industry

Conducting an audit would be a very useful tool in helping stakeholders in the hospitality industry determine exactly how ready their hotel is should a natural disaster such as a hurricane occur and, as such, this is an option that is available to these stakeholders.

This is according to Director of the Department of Emergency Planning, Kerry Hinds who at the time was speaking to The Barbados Advocate after a Disaster Management Seminar organized by the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) under the theme of ‘Managing Risks for a Safer Tourism Plant’ on Thursday at the Savannah Hotel.

Agreeing with a comment made by one of these hotel owners earlier in the seminar, she stated that this audit would help these hotel owners see exactly what areas they need to improve on and even what areas they are doing really well in so that they can continue to strengthen these areas.

“The suggestion of probably doing an audit to see where we are as a sector, I think that that is very important and of course that would point out to the sector where the possible deficiencies are and of course where the strengths are because I think that we should look at it in a holistic manner and what this audit could also do is to point you to pulling together a programme of how you would tackle the whole issue of tackling disaster reliance as a sector.”

As for who hotel owners would get to help them with this audit, she said that maybe associations such as the BHTA, institutions such as the Caribbean Tourism Organization or the Ministry of Tourism itself could help them find a company – even a private one – that specializes in doing these types of audits.

“That is an option and I think that these audits have been done, I am sure globally and possibly the BHTA or even the Ministry of Tourism or even the Caribbean Tourism Organization may be able to assist in terms of identifying a stakeholder or persons that can actually conduct these audits on behalf of or for the sector.” (PJT)