Winter bookings up

A GOOD 2014 WINTER SEASON is being predicted for Barbados.

President of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Sunil Chatrani, said yesterday the sector was reporting strong bookings for the winter and travel partners had confirmed the positive outlook.

Though he did not expect visitor arrival numbers to reach previous levels, Chatrani said what he was seeing was a marked improvement over last year.

He also gave the BHTA’s final quarterly meeting for the year his “simplistic view” of what was needed by the tourism sector to start its own recovery and turn around the sagging economy.

“Everyone is now looking to this sector, the major economic driver of this economy, to turn things around,” he said, though conceding that a lot was required of tourism operators. He suggested they in turn needed “the tools to do the job”. (GC)

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