Barbados presents a tale of two tourisms
Friday December 16 2011 | 09:47 AM

On the same day that Barbados received its first scheduled direct flight from Sweden in 15 years with the promise of opening up new northern European markets, the head of the hoteliers’ association called for a high-level meeting to rescue Barbados tourism.

While Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy and Minister of International Transport George Hutson were on hand at the Grantley Adams International Airport yesterday (December 14) to enthusiastically welcome the TUI Nordic for the start of its scheduled bi-weekly service, head of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Colin Jordan, wants to urgently see the two officials in another setting.

The BHTA president revealed at the association’s fourth quarterly meeting yesterday that Minister Sealy had been contacted to urgently pave the way for a meeting between the BHTA and Minister Hutson so that the challenges facing cruise tourism can be resolved.

“The BHTA is equally amazed with the sloth that seems to characterise the approach of policy makers to the situation of the cruise industry. We have a crisis on our hands and Nero, the system, seems to be fiddling quite contentedly.

“I am not using the word ‘crisis’ to evoke some emotive response. The reality is that there will be a significant fall off in both cruise calls and cruise passenger arrivals. Many of our Direct Tourism Services members are staring down the barrel,” Jordan told the gathering at the Hilton Barbados.

“It appears that the only real action being taken is private-sector driven. Some in the public sector maintain that cruise, by its nature and size and infrastructural requirements, should be public-sector led. But there is no leadership, at least none that can be discerned with the naked eye.”

Jordan added, “Even though our Minister does not have responsibility for International Transport, we are talking about Tourism here and, as such, have approached him and requested him to facilitate a meeting in order to share our concerns and receive an update on the state of the industry. We are now at a critical stage and need urgent attention and action,” he said.

Conversely, tourism authorities have high hopes for the new dedicated charter flight from Stockholm, Sweden, which will operate a bi-weekly service until February 22, 2012. The airline will operate a B767-300 ER aircraft, which has 288 seats consisting of 30 premium seats, 102 premium economy seats and 156 economy seats.

Speaking at the arrival ceremony, Minister Sealy announced that since the flight from Stockholm had already elicited such a positive response, an additional flight, this time from Finland, would be added for winter 2012. 

“The fact is that we have already confirmed for the next winter season the doubling of the capacity from Scandinavia. This flight is out of Sweden every other week, but next winter season we will have flights every week alternating from Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland,” he said. 

According to the Barbados Tourism Authority’s Aviation Consultant, Neville Boxill, “sales have been very good so far. Up to November 15, the entire programme was at a 92% load factor. We are looking to build on the success of the first service in the second year.” The trend comes off of the momentum from earlier booking level, which stood at 44% in March this year. 

Sealy described the relationship between Barbados and TUI Nordic as having significant growth prospects and that tourism officials would be using this relationship to explore the possibility of further expansion into the European market. 

“We believe there is a lot of good business to be had in Europe. The Government’s strategy of diversifying the source markets is working,” he added.

Despite these prospects, the question of where the new influx of European visitors would stay is a real one as Jordan noted in his address to the BHTA membership that some hotels on the South Coast were facing challenges that threatened their survival in the short to medium term.

Turning his attention to air travel, Jordan expressed pleasure at the recent granting of permission by the Ministry of International Transport to REDjet to fly the Barbados/St. Lucia route, but grave disappointment with the decision of the United Kingdom government to both increase the APD and to leave in place a banding system that he described as blatantly discriminatory and unfair to the Caribbean.

The President candidly said, “As it relates to the banding structure, we are amazed that a right-thinking government would reject the fairer, revenue-neutral proposal made by the Caribbean.”

He also expressed disappointment that after more than five years there was no updated Tourism Development Act.

“The private and public sector know the reality that Tourism faces some of its sterner days in 2012, yet we have not been able to have some simple amendments made to this important piece of legislation to improve Tourism in Barbados,” he said.