AN ADDITIONAL $10 million will be spent repositioning the islandin price-resilient tourism markets.

This has been revealed by Minister of Finance David Thompson, who said he had requested that the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) focus more on the Diaspora market "in order to attract more friends of Barbados living overseas as visitors to Barbados".

Thompson, who was introducing his Budgetary Proposals in the House of Assembly yesterday, said Government was designing a tourism master plan to look at the island's land use policy, marketing, carrying capacity and links to other sectors.

"A supplementary will be sought from Parliament to enable the BTA (Barbados Tourism Authority) to do all it can to protect our tourism numbers and even to grow them a little in the current world economic circumstances," he said.

Thompson further said the Government also planned to develop areas where the tourism product would not conflict with "the aspirations of Barbadians".

He said the luxury tourism market would see the construction and opening "every two years" of an internationally branded hotel and associated branded residences in the five-star market.

Thompson added that the Tourism Development Act would also be amended to provided a range of concessions and incentives. (HLE)