Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Authority, Adrian Elcock, says the decision to replace the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) with two separate tourism entities is more about changing the way Barbados’ tourism business is done.
His remarks follow Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy’s disclosure of plans to set up the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. and the Barbados Tourism and Product Authority, the former to focus on product-related tourism issues and the latter on marketing.
Speaking at an Ilaro Court reception for repeat visitors Wednesday night, Elcock said: “I think it is accepted that Barbados’ tourism marketing needs to be given a shot of steroids and we need to be more creative and we need to be more responsive to the 21st century demands of tourism marketing needs.”
He explained: “The advantage of a private sector entity for the marketing allows us to be totally nimble, respond to market needs a little bit more quickly and be able to get into business transactions in a way that we can’t now because of our statutory nature.”
Disclosing that the restructuring plan had been approved by Cabinet late last year, Elcock said Tourism Marketing Inc. would be “a private sector-formed company 100 per cent owned by Government” while Barbados Tourism and Product Authority would be a statutory board into which the BTA, originally created through an act of Parliament, would be assimilated.
Full story in tomorrow’s DAILY NATION
