In this December 2006 Gleaner photo, Swiss Store owner Peter Bangerter adjusts an Omega watch worn by Shereene Welsh, branch manager of the Mall Plaza outlet, at the showing of the store's Christmas selection. - File
Located in premium shopping space in local hotels, gift shops, gaming lounges, boutiques and other retail outlets are finding that they are no less affected by the consumer retreat to frugality.
And where hotel stores are dependent on visiting foreign guests, their sales appear to have waned even more than the meeting-based properties where Jamaican professionals and executives, and their families, have remained a fairly loyal market, even if somewhat less inclined to splurge.
Shop owners say business has fallen off 15 per cent to 30 per cent since autumn 2008, with vacationers less willing to spend on jewellery, souvenirs, and even pampering.
"People are traveling but they are not buying much," says Vivia Bailey of The Boutique at the Holiday Inn in Montego Bay.
Peter Bangerter, operator of 20-year-old Swiss stores -which has outlets at the Jamaica Pegasus in Kingston, Island Village in Ocho Rios, and at Rose Hall in St James - says duty free luxury shopping has fallen significantly.
"The major shoppers are US visitors and they are not buying. They are not spending," said Bangerter.
"Times are tight. You don't need a watch, or a piece of jewellery - you wait."
Jamaica has at least 90 properties with 50 rooms or more - the largest being Riu Ocho Rios with 846 rooms - and tens more properties spread across the main tourist centres, including Kingston.
The capital, which largely depends on the meetings and events markets for patronage, has 17 properties, about 11 of which have 50 rooms or more.
The Financial Gleaner was unable to ascertain the population of hotel shops, but the Hilton hotel in New Kingston alone has 24.
Buttressed in part by swine flu scares in Latin America, tourist visits to Jamaica saw single digit increases up to April, but even with the higher body count, analysts have noted a move by American consumers to cut spending on vacations.
Jamaica had 649,187 visitsbetween January and April 2009, a slight 2.0 per cent increase over the 2008 period.
In June, Standard and Poor's projected for Jamaica a 10 per cent decline in tourism revenues for 2009, notwithstanding the agency's estimation that stopover arrivals would grow four per cent.
Last year, tourist spend rose an estimated 1.2 per cent. The average stopover visitor spent US$119.47, of which 9.8 per cent or about US$11.70 was spent shopping.
Cruise visitors spent an average $94.19 per passenger, of which 58 per cent or some U$55 per person was spent in the shops.
Tourist visits to Jamaica average three million tourists annually with $76 billion in revenues in direct earnings. Last year, gross receipts climbed 3.4 per cent to US$1.975 billion or J$144 billion, according to the 2008 annual travel statistics published by the Jamaica Tourist Board.
Feeling the effects
Stores like Bangerter's are already feeling the effects of what S&P predicts.
The Swiss Store owner says 'in-hotel' outlets are doing much worse than other Jamaican locations in which sales have also fallen, but not by as significant a margin.
To keep costs down, Bangerter said he does not fill vacancies, and has cut work hours.
"We are not replacing staff and some have agreed to work a four- day week. Things are not as they used to be especially in the tourist shops," he said.
Bailey says the current slump is the worsening of a pattern of smaller sales that has been emerging over the past few years, where much of the patronage of stores like hers came from groups rather than single vacationers.
Jamaica's two largest hotel chains - Sandals Resorts and SuperClubs, both built on the all-inclusive concept - declined comment on the performance of shops within their properties.
But representatives of both resort chains did acknowledge that they have management control, or at the very least oversight, of shops and spas on their properties - a deliberate strategy to control service quality and, as a Sandals representative put it, "deliver good value to guests."
15% fall in sales
But, at the Hilton hotel in Kingston where 24 retail outlets are located - most operated by independent owners who lease the shop space from the hotel - Pauline Stewart, manager of Stewarts Travel agency, says she has been hit with a double whammy, a 15 per cent fall in sales and a 50 per cent cut in commissions by the airlines.
To adjust: "We have had to minimise expenses including reducing the use of paper," said Stewart.
Her clientele is largely Jamaican as only rarely do overseas guests require the services of a local travel agency.
Yvette Edwards who operates a beauty salon at the New Kingston hotel says her salvation has been local clients who represent "99 per cent" of her market.
"Things might go down for a few days during the week," she said, referring to client visits.
"But we make it up on the weekend."
Only very few overseas guests to the hotel will ask for the beauty services, Edwards said, but Jamaican clients have not cut back significantly on their demand for such services, which are done by appointment only.
Perhaps the most upbeat response came from Peter Morris, manager of Gymkhana, who has found that Jamaicans want to stay fit in or outside a recession.
Health and fitness
A papier-mache house created back in 2006 by the Papier-Mache Co-op at the Stella Maris Foundation which supplied the items to tourist shops. - File
"People are still aware of health and fitness. Most of our clients are Jamaicans, although we do get some of the hotel's guests. We have seen a slight dip in membership, but no major fallout since last autumn."
Businesses have consistently referenced the autumn in their assessment of sales because it heralded the global credit crisis.
Here in Jamaica it was the beginning of a stock market plunge that erased more than $200 billion of investor wealth, sent the cost of business soaring and company bottom lines into depression; companies then moved to consolidate through staff cuts, salary cuts and fewer work days, and most have increased prices of goods and services.
But, with limited disposable income, and for some no income at all, consumers subsequently retreated.
Millicent Mair, manager of the dental outlet served by seven dentists on rotation in the Hilton hotel arcade, says business has fallen off by 30 per cent, even though the clientele is largely Jamaican and most could be described as originating from Kingston's higher income groups.
"They just cannot afford it, especially if they do not have insurance, and some are affected by uncertainty about jobs. I feel they don't have the money to spend and will stay away unless in dire need," Mair said.
avia.collinder@gleanerjm.com