Barbados ‘will be top choice of female Brit visitors for decades’

A Europe-based travel health firm has made a bold prediction about Barbados’ long-term health as a tourism destination, saying it will remain the number one destination of choice for British female holidaymakers seeking a trip to the Caribbean over the next three decades.

Copenhagen-based Practio is also predicting that both male and female UK travellers to Barbados will spend an average of about $5,700 (£2,042) per visit by the year 2030.

“In total, it is predicted that holidaying Brits, both male and female, will spend a total of £670,415,954.24 [about $1.9 million] in 2030 in Barbados,” it said.

Barbados is followed by Jamaica, with Brits predicted to spend an average of $5,065 (£1,802) per visit in 2030.

The travel health group said data in 2019 showed that Barbados was ranked in the top three of destinations British women visited, accounting for 64 per cent of all visits to Barbados made by females.

Declaring that Barbados would remain among the top destinations of choice for the next 30 years, Practio said female journeys to the country would increase at a compound average growth rate of 7.04 per cent per year.

In its prediction, Practio said Barbados could be the fourth most popular destination of choice for female travellers from the UK in 2030, behind Estonia, Luxembourg, China-Hong Kong, and the fifth most desired in 2050, behind Estonia, Luxembourg, China-Hong-Kong and Norway.

“In 2030, it is predicted that 250,393 females will visit Barbados, accounting for 73.26 per cent of all predicted visits to the country from the UK,” it said.

Managing Director and Co-Founder of Practio, Dr Jonas Nilsen, said the idea behind the research was to understand British travel trends over the past ten years and give an idea of what it meant for travel in the future.

Nilsen said: “Travel was mostly out of the question in 2020 and many of us are hoping for its return in 2021. By predicting future trends, we can better equip travellers and businesses that thrive off tourism by helping them to prepare for what’s to come and how they can make the most of Brits’ travel habits.

“It’s also been great to see some of the emerging trends and how travel is changing. We’re seeing the go-to destinations start to change with more money being spent in countries further afield, which should be a good sign for the future of the travel industry beyond the pandemic.”

Practio said it analysed 10 years of UK travel data from the UK Office for National Statistics from 2009-2019, to monitor where Brits have been travelling over the years, where money has been spent and how habits were changing.

The research showed that Spain was the number one choice of destination for Brits in 2019, followed by France, Italy, Greece, the US, Portugal, the Netherlands and Turkey.

But it is predicting that by the year 2050 that would change with Hungary being the number one choice, followed by Spain, Romania, Iceland, Mexico, Croatia, the Netherlands, Latvia and Italy.

It is predicting a major shake-up in tourists’ spend in the year 2030, stating that Japan, China, Iceland, Thailand, the USA, Barbados and Norway will move up the table.

The top country for British tourists’ spend in 2019 was Australia, followed by Austria, Pakistan, Spain, Poland, South Africa and Hungary.

A Danish digital startup, Practio provides a digital healthcare platform that enables pharmacies to become central points-of-care.

For more context around the data and the methodology of this study. Click the following link https://practio.co.uk/travel-health/articles/popular-holiday-destinations-for-brits-when-travel-opens-up

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)