Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) and the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA), Sunil Chatrani, at the Taste the Spirits of Polo event on Sunday. (J. Weekes/BGIS)
Merging the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) and the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA) will achieve more efficiency.
Chairman of the BTMI and the BTPA, Sunil Chatrani, expressed this opinion during an interview with the media at Taste the Spirits of Polo, the final event of the 2018 Food and Rum Festival.
“In terms of the merger, from different administrations we have gone from being one organization to two and we are going back to one organization. The truth is you can achieve the same objectives regardless of the structure. It is just a lot more efficient to achieve it under one,” he pointed out.
Mr. Chatrani stated that both the BTMI and BTPA have achieved “a lot” individually but added: “We can see clear evidence of the need to bring them together.”
“If you look back at it, within the BTMI and BTPA, they are in the same offices. They already have shared services in terms of HR, IT and Finance. It is just really coordinating the activities so that they can be better coordinated.
“We are seeing a lot of duplication in terms of the marketing efforts that we’ve done and from BTMI’s point of view, as you know the direction in which you want to go, and how you want to establish Barbados, it certainly helps us to identify where the needs are. And having identified the needs, the BTPA can help them in creating an opportunity for people to get involved, more specifically private sector getting involved and helping to develop our specific areas,” the Chairman explained.
In June this year, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley announced during her mini-budget presentation that the BTMI and the BTPA would eventually operate as one entity as a partnership between Government and the private sector.