COVID-19 ‘presents chance to reimagine Bajan tourism’

Now is the perfect time for Barbados to reimagine its tourism product, Minister of Tourism Senator Lisa Cummins, declared Monday, acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a catalyst for reforming the island’s offerings.

She told a workshop: “Without COVID-19 we needed to have a reimagining conversation around the tourism industry in any event and COVID-19 has simply accelerated not just the advance of conversations on prioritizing private sector-led development, it has prioritized the acceleration of a conversation on innovation and digitization and transformation, it has accelerated our conversation on creativity innovation and bringing new ideas to the table and the tourism sector equally so has simply seen the acceleration of a conversation on reimagining the Barbados tourism sector and all of its related products and services in a way that brings us into the third decade of the 21st century.

“There’s no question that in a time where a billion fewer tourists have been travelling globally, that there has been a loss of $1.3 trillion in total export revenues from tourism and that over 100 million direct jobs globally are at risk that there is a need for a reimagining of the sector…There is no question and can be no question that there has to be a reimaging of a sector that both is so vulnerable on the one hand, is so well established, on the other hand, has such direct spillover effects into the wider economy, but also is in such need of immediate and urgent transformation.

“For tourism, the urgency is now. The time for action is now and we are having this conversation today…because we are required by the time and space in which we are functioning to jumpstart a new tourism industry, an inclusive tourism industry and that has to be the mantra that will guide all of our upcoming discussions as we go forward.”

Senator Cummins was speaking at the opening of a three-day workshop entitled Re-Imagining Tourism in Barbados. co-sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Barbados would have to meet the changing demands of visitors to the island, she added.

Representative at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Barbados, Juan Carlos de la Hoz Vinas, maintained that countries including Barbados needed to do more than just repair the damage done to their economies by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With the shock caused by COVID, countries must do more than build back their economies and so the IDB is leveraging our resources and relationships within the direct community to help countries in the region to build forward for the more digital future that awaits us all,” he said. (RB)