Record breaker
Thursday February 24 2011 | 01:22 AM

There is good news for Barbados' tourism sector.

Industry officials yesterday revealed that the island's main economic driver had seen a record number of just under 53,000 visitors coming to the island in January alone.

That beats the 2008 record when 49,000 tourists visited.†This translates to 5,000 visitors more within the first six weeks of this year than last year, as figures show an overall increase of 2.6 per cent in arrivals, and an 8.5 per cent increase in airlift.

Of that number, the US market showed a 10.4 per cent increase, Europe 3.5 per cent and Canada 13.5 per cent, while the UK market was down by five per cent.

Officials stressed at a Press briefing to give an update on the sector's performance at the Almond Beach Club today, that there was still a lot of work to be done in the industry.

Topping the to-do list is maintaining airlift in and out of Barbados from its source markets.

But it is a situation which chairman of the Barbados Tourism Authority Ralph Taylor stated was "doing well". He said that additional growth was expected from the US market as three direct flights from Dallas opened Barbados as a destination of choice for the West Coast of the US.

In addition, Jet Blue is expected to increase flights to the island by two during July and August to accommodate Barbadians and visitors coming in for Crop Over.

Meanwhile, stakeholders were successful in their bid to convince West Jet not to reduce the number of flights it currently provides to Barbados, which could have resulted in a lost of 7,200 seats if it had implemented a plan to have just three flight weekly, rather than the current five.

"There will be no reductions for 2011," Taylor assured.

But while flights on West Jet were secured, some were lost as Air Canada changed up some of its equipment and planes. That, Taylor explained, resulted in a fall off in arrivals, but he stated that discussions were ongoing to prevent a recurrence in 2011.

He added that they were currently in discussions to have additional flights out of Montreal and from Western Canada to Barbados which is expected to fuel increased winter arrivals.

Taylor pointed out that Canada was one of the countries least affected by the economic recession and Canadians were constantly travelling.

As it relates to Brazil, Taylor said efforts to woo that market had been very successful with just under 2,400 Brazilians visiting Barbados so far this year.

GOL airline has also upgraded the aircraft servicing the Barbados-Brazil route from a 737 to a 767. He added that by year-end discussions on a second flight from Brazil would be undertaken, along with a massive advertising campaign.

BTA's chief executive officer, David Rice, said officials were being cautiously optimistic about what the remainder of 2011 would bring. "There is a lot of work to do. We have to be ahead of the game," he said.

He added that there were over 41,000 more seats expected for Barbados this year but work had to be done to fill them.

"The airlines want to fill the seats. We need to convert that to visitors coming to the island on the aircraft and we need to increase our marketing," Rice said.