Big pay off

The Barbados Welcome Stamp has been paying off in a big way for the local hospitality sector.

This revelation comes from Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) Interim Chief Executive officer Petra Roach, as she spoke briefly at a special screening of a Channel 4 documentary entitled Escape to Barbados.

The documentary follows three different sets of people/families, who took the opportunity to come to the island for up to 12 months in order to escape the COVID-19 pandemic back in the United Kingdom (UK).

Before the screening of the video, Roach revealed that the number of applicants so far for the stamp, has been tremendous.

“To date, we’ve had 1497 applications which have been approved, and that is a combination of both individuals and families. The individuals represent 67 per cent and the families represent 33 per cent. What we have seen is that people have come to the realization that they cannot continue their lives as normal.

“The pandemic has just stopped us in our tracks and made us question ourselves about what is it we really want out of life. For persons to pick up their entire existence and move to Barbados, we think it sounds easy, but think about that. Do you leave your house; do you bring your pet? You are leaving your family behind and all of your friends…so it’s actually quite a big, big decision,” she said.

Fifteen per cent of the persons taking advantage of the Welcome Stamp originate from the USA and represent one of a total of 89 nationalities who have applied.

With the high international traction around the stamp, several production companies from around the world expressed interest in creating content in documenting the journeys of persons travelling to the island, Roach said.

“One of those was actually a company called Lion Television which is a production house in Scotland. They were asking Channel 4 to do this documentary for them. I remember this was a fascinating thing because when we first started they were like how do we find these people. So we actually went scouting on all of the social media sites because we saw several people asking for information on where do they find a home, how do they bring their pets, where can they send their kids to school. So they are a lot of social media communities that have popped up, and therefore we went scouting to find these people,” she revealed.

The documentary on the journey of the three families aired on Dec 2, but talks are currently ongoing to have the programme aired on CBC TV8.