BARBADOS: Minister Of Tourism Richard Sealy Says Tourism Booming

Barbados tourism has high tourist arrivals.

Word of this from Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy who was speaking to the media during a break of the opening session of the 31st annual sales conference of the Caribbean Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (CARAIFA), at Hilton Barbados this morning.

Sealy said the country was seeing the results of the marketing and other efforts from the relevant arms of his ministry and boasted that as of the end of April arrivals were up by 8.2 per cent over the same period last year.

Sealy did not give figures, but air arrivals for January to March stood at 192 298.

All Barbadians should feel proud to know that in 2016, the 50th year of our nationhood more people came to Barbados than at any time in our history.

The point is that we still have something very special that people from outside of Barbados want a part of,Sealy said.

About 300 delegates from about 11 Caribbean countries are in Barbados for the conference which runs through Wednesday.

Addressing members of the media and top tourism officials in the private and public sectors, Sealy revealed that 2015 arrival numbers transcended 2007 which previously held the highest record of 570 000 visitors.

During the session at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Sealy provided stakeholders with a detailed assessment of his ministry’s performance.

He said the United Kingdom market continued to dominate as the leading source market for Barbados, contributing 36.8 per cent of all arrivals.

British arrivals in 2015 grew by 14.1 per cent compared to 2014.

Visitors from the United States represented a quarter of all arrivals to Barbados or 148 165 visitors and that market improved by almost 25 per cent.

Canada proved to be an important source market for Barbados with 74 512 arrivals, while regionally increases of 5.8 per cent were recorded for Trinidad and Tobago and 13.1 per cent for other Caribbean countries.

When it came to length of stay, the Tourism Minister revealed that during 2015, there was an increase in all categories of lengths of stay with the exception of those staying for between 15 to 21 days.

The majority of visitors coming to the island stayed four to seven days and eight to 14 days. Some 67 per cent of all visitors to the country spent between four and 14 days on the island.

Barbados tourist arrivals from January to October this year exceeded those for the same period last year. Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy, speaking last night during the launch of Tourism Week 2011 at George Washington House, St Michael, said there had also been increases in stay-over visitors, cruise passengers and CARICOM arrivals.

Despite the global recession, Barbados’ tourism industry is holding its own. Stay-over visitor arrivals for the period January to October 2011 were 465 275. This represented an increase of 7.2 per cent over the previous year, he said.

Sealy also said cruise passenger arrivals for the same period increased by 3 483 this year for a total of 463 663 arrivals while visitors from Trinidad and Tobago showed an increase of 31.2 per cent for a total of 3 773 arrivals.