Barbados has a new record for cruise passenger arrivals in a single year.
Barbados Port Inc. (BPI) is reporting 853 200 arrivals from 422 cruise ship calls for January to December 2019, a three per cent increase over the 2018 figure of 826 267 passengers from 437 vessels.
It surpassed the previous high of 827 486 visitors in 2017, when the island benefited from the redeployment of ships from other Caribbean destinations ravaged by hurricanes that year.
Director of cruise at the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), Cheryl Franklyn, yesterday described it as a “fantastic performance”. She told the MIDWEEK NATION that with this rate of growth, it was necessary to ensure Barbados continued to meet the demand and maintain its competitive edge by building out capacity to handle the mega ships being turned out. (GC)
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