July jackpot: Excellent tourist arrivals to Barbados recorded last month
Thursday August 11 2011 | 04:49 AM

Over 700 000 visitors have visited Barbados between January to July this year, with a record high thus far of 58 270 visitors flying into the country last month.

CEO and President of the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA), David Rice, revealed these figures yesterday afternoon at a debriefing of the Rihanna LOUD concert held at the BTA’s Harbour Road, Bridgetown headquarters.

“For the year, from January to July, Barbados has had 350 390 visitors, an 8.3 per cent increase over the previous year; about 26 464 more over the same period. For the cruise ship, 386 000, that is, 

17 634 or 4.8 per cent more than the previous year. When you take those numbers, you will see that clearly we are over 700 000 visitors for the first seven months of 2011,” said Rice.

He said in July, there were 58 270 visitors in Barbados. “We did not have a month with so many visitors yet this year and one can see that with the Rihanna inclusion, as well as the Crop Over Festival, we have certainly brought a tremendous number of visitors to the country.”

Speaking about the July figures, he said, “We were 14 per cent better than last year; 6 726 more visitors to the country. We saw that there were 2 200 more visitors from the United States, 1 336 more from Trinidad and other Caricom was 2 157.”
According to him, based on the regional market alone, there were 3 400 visitors coming to Barbados for the period of July, which raised numbers considerably.

Rice said that the first week of August was also very impressive. “It was so impressive that we are still getting the numbers,” he added.

He stated that Rihanna’s August 5 performance is going to raise the antennae for a lot of people about coming to Barbados to perform and to produce shows in this country.

Chairman of the BTA, Adrian Elcock, noted that the number for August is exceeding 4 000 visitors. 

“What we have done is create a record number of arrivals for July with the comprehensive marketing plan that we did. Over half a billion dollars was spent over all markets supporting Crop Over and with the [Rihanna] show, we boosted a month that is traditionally one of our very slow periods,” said Elcock.

Rice said that Barbados is going to have a stronger year with an increase of 13 per cent and this forecast was before low-cost carrier REDjet came on stream.

The CEO explained that the July to September period is expected to bring 18 000 visitors more than prior years, with a forecast of 574 000 flying into this country for 2011.

“In October, we are not expecting to have better numbers, but in November we should have two events. We expect the month to be a big month for us,” he said.

Rice added that between January to June, the luxury market has increased by 17.5 per cent over previous years.
“Visitors are spending money at a higher rate than last year. The villas increased by 12. 5 per cent over previous years. What that is saying to us is that visitors coming to Barbados are prepared to spend their money commensurate with the quality of product and service.”

Acknowledging that the BTA is monitoring the current riots in England, Rice noteded that the BTA has other markets so if any type of downturn is seen, more resources would be put into other markets to increase numbers to finish the year at a certain percentage.

“We are watchful and hope that it ends soon. At the same time, we don’t depend on one market alone to bring visitors and complete our forecast,” said Rice.