Faced with serious regional and extra regional competition, Barbados is looking to T&T to boost tourism, the mainstay of its economy.Vicky Chandler, Caribbean and Latin America director of Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) said T&T is the island's number one market in the region and fourth globally. She said of the 78,594 visitors to Barbados last year, 27,952, or 35.6 per cent, were from T&T. However, there has been an overall decline in visitors to Barbados due to competition from the United Stares and Canada.
"Last year was the third year that we had seen a reduction in numbers from Trinidad but it is not only Trinidad, it is the entire region," she saidChandler said tourism officials in Barbados are going all out to recapture this interest as the decline can cause further stagnation of the industry.
As a result, a contingent from the BTMI rolled out a series of incentives aimed at wooing visitors during a Barbados Evening at the Royal Hotel, San Fernando. Chandler told guests at the function while many T&T nationals felt they have already visited and done everything, in Barbados, the experience has been reinvented cuisines, tours, accommodations and the island's major event, the Crop Over Festival.
She said they are also working on tactical programmes with Caribbean Airlines and Liat to provide more attractive air fare options to visitors."I think what we can do is try to mitigate against the cost by offering some kind of value added to the consumer so that the final cost is something that is manageable."
She added: "I think we need to be more creative in how we sell the destination. Barbados is a known entity and that is one of the things we keep hearing from your Trinidadian counterparts."Most people have been to Barbados, they love Barbados but they have done almost everything already. We really do try to reinvent ourselves."