Helping hand for tourism

Central Bank Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell. (FP)

Mon, September 03, 2012 - 12:00 AM

The country's breadbasket – the tourism sector – has been getting critical investments to counter its decline since the start of the financial crisis, Central Bank of Barbados Governor Dr DeLisle Worrell has assured his countrymen.

Not going into detail, the economist said a number of initiatives were being “promoted” to keep the critical sector afloat, including more focus on the “upmarket facilities”.

“In tourism, in terms of market share over the medium term, we have been holding our own. But as you know, we have lost ground since the crisis so our market share has been declining. The investment that we are seeking to promote and support in tourism has to be to arrest and turn around that decline,” he said.

“We are also doing things to enrich the tourist experience in Barbados and to invest in providing more upmarket facilities.

“There are a number of them, including the Four Seasons, Limegrove Lifestyle Centre, Port Ferdinand and so on, as well as the development of new [tourism] markets such as Brazil and continental European markets,” said Worrell.

He was delivering a presentation at the Rotary Club of Barbados South lunchtime meeting at the Accra Beach Hotel last Wednesday on the topic Maintaining Policy Independence.

Worrell said despite a dip in some of its tourism market share, Barbados still had the capacity to benefit from its traditional markets.

“We have advantages; we have a diversified product in terms of the market from which we get our tourist. We are not overly concentrated in any one market.

“The [British] market is our largest but we also get substantial numbers of tourists from Canada, the [United States], and from Trinidad and the rest of the Caribbean,” he said. (MM)