First of all, I want to thank all of you who respect the positive impact that Lenbert and the Pub Crawl has had on the businesses of Negril. His dedication during the near non-stop busy season and twice a week slower season is an inspiration to many. But this thread makes me wonder.Originally Posted by Lola
To discuss Lenberts business model here is something that I find a little puzzling. Do businesses in your own town have to go through this public scrutiny on an Internet forum? If you own a business, would you expect this to happen to you? I have seen people going as far as to try and calculate out their perceived numbers to determine his income. I am truly puzzled by that behavior.
To answer Lola's comment, yes, the tour is FREE as there is no fixed charge to any visitor on the bus. And with Jamaica being the most capitalistic country I have ever lived in, it is truly authentic for one business to help out another when they benefit from the other business' services. As is common to say here, it takes two hands to clap!
As some have stated, a tip as low as US$3 has been accepted. For a tour that lasts at least 4 hours, that works out to be less than a dollar an hour for two people. I find that puzzling behavior, just as I do the following:
I have personally witnessed an entire group of about a dozen people use the free "pub crawl" as a way to get to the West End from the beach for free. They all left at the first stop as a group, not tipping a penny. They just walked away without even a thank you. A dozen times zero works out to be ZERO dollars for a dozen people to ride. I have seen couples use the bus to get back to their cliff hotel from the beach, stopping at each location until they got near their hotel and then they walked off without tipping a dime. Others have left the tour thinking it was a shopping tour and others have demanded that Lenbert take them to Ricks Cafe. I have witnessed each of these instances first hand. Thank Jah this behavior is not the norm, but it does happen. How does Lenbert pay for the cost of doing business when some people use his generosity as a free ride and pay nothing? Any business person knows that this is just not economically sustainable.
To hopefully shed some factual light on something that really shouldnt be necessary, but hopefully stop the speculation, the bus Lenbert owns was painted and originally meant to take our visitors as a free shuttle on the West End as part of a "Negril Cluster" project, which was "West End" focused. They were also the ones that came up with the One Love Drive name and petitioned the government to allow it to become a secondary name for the road on the West End. This West End shuttle idea came to a quick halt when the regular taxi drivers didnt like the idea of competing against "free". That and the fact that there was no way to keep the bus insured or maintained since there was no charges planned for the West End shuttle service. The costs involved in maintaining the bus are much more than a car, a single tire can cost more than 4 tires for most cars. The red plated licensing and associated costs have to be added to the "cost of doing business". For operating a "free" service to our visitors, common sense dictates that money to maintain the operation has to come from somewhere. So a new idea had to be hatched.
In 2011, when Lenbert, Lisa and I were sitting around trying to figure out a way for the bus to become something useful for the community, we came up with the idea of the "pub crawl". We webcast the first several ones on RealNegril.com to give people an idea of what they could expect. Here is one of the first threads with pics from the original "bar crawls":
http://negril.com/forum/showthread.p...rawl-yesterday
Within two months, the bus became so crowded that there was no way to webcast from the bus anymore. And in the last 5 years, the "bar crawl" became the "Pub Crawl" and has brought more people to businesses on the West End than any other single endeavor. One enterprising bar, upon being overloaded with the rush, hired extra help for the short time the "crawlers" were there. To give Lenbert incentive to come back, they "tipped" him for his service. This is how that practice started and was quickly copied by other bars. Whether the bus was packed or just comfortable with a dozen or so visitors, most bars appreciated the business.
As with anything, you cannot please all the people all the time. Some bars could not handle the increase in traffic which is why Lenbert now calls the bars in advance to make sure they are ready. But this is not always a smooth process so problems can and have occurred over the years. In a small town like Negril, where everyone knows everyone, emotions can run high and stories can take on a life of their own. But each situation is always worked out to both Lenbert's and the businesses' satisfaction. The business hire extra staff for that short time period and the smart ones encourage Lenbert to return more often by helping him maintain the bus service so the Pub Crawl remains FREE for all of our visitors. To accomplish this, the prices at some places are raised to cover the additional staff and a gratitude to Lenbert for bringing them a crowd, but many do not raise their prices at all. It is up to the business.
This is the truth behind how the business model came to be, and in the last few crawls, businesses such as Red Dragon, Woodstock, Quality's Sea Breeze, Sunset Bar, No Limit, Xtabi, The Horizon West and others have all benefited by these stops.
I find it strange to be writing all this. When did it become a crime to be a successful Jamaican business person? The Pub Crawl IS free and the stops ARE as authentically Jamaican as you can get.
