Officials reopen tourism, predict increasing airlift, hotel occupancy

Barbados is again officially open for tourism business, officials announced Friday as they predicted a major increase in airlift to the island by year-end after a year-long closure triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

And with the expected increase in airlift, a spike in occupancy levels across all categories of accommodation is also being forecast, according to Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Senator Rudy Grant.

He joined other leading tourism executives for a virtual ceremony to relaunch the Barbados brand and the reopening of the market.

Significant investments have already been made in the upgrade of the island’s tourism room stock, the BHTA CEO declared.

In a pre-recorded video message Senator Grant said: “So of the 5,800 rooms that we have, that equate to about 9,800 bedrooms, our expectation is that by the winter season all of those rooms will be back, and we will have in terms of accommodation numbers with respect to hotels, villas, guesthouses and apartments, the pre-COVID-19 numbers.”

Cheryl Carter, recently appointed Interim Head of Global Markets at the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), said despite the challenges last year local officials had been busy at work with local, regional and international partners readying the island for the resumption of travel.

She said travel partners have been pointing to “significant pent-up demand for Barbados”, adding that “against the backdrop of our management of COVID-19 and the recent introduction of new protocols they are seeing a tremendous increase in demand especially from October through winter 2021/2022, where bookings are in some cases stronger than 2019”.

The BTMI has introduced a new branding campaign – Little Island, Big Barbados – which seeks to inform the world that despite its size, the destination is “big on” several areas including “adventure, flavour, vibes, peace and love”.

At the same time, the marketing agency has officially launched a National Tourism Marketing Committee (NTMC) that will focus on the strategic marketing of niche tourism product offerings.

During her presentation, Carter disclosed that airlines have already informed local officials of increased airlift in coming months, adding that this was a demonstration of their “significant confidence and renewed commitment to Barbados”.

She announced that American Airlines will offer a daily service from Miami to Bridgetown from October, adding to the current five weekly flights. The service from Charlotte is scheduled to operate once weekly from July and move to a daily service in December.

“The JetBlue service from JFK will move from the current four times a week to daily in June and to twice daily from December through winter,” Carter said. “JetBlue will maintain a once-weekly service from Boston and Newark through December and a twice-weekly service from Boston through winter.

“In the United Kingdom, both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are currently maintaining a minimum of twice-weekly service from Heathrow and daily service from Heathrow is currently on sale from July on both carriers.”

Come winter, British Airways is expected to reintroduce a four-times-weekly service from Gatwick and Virgin Atlantic’s Manchester service to Bridgetown is scheduled to commence at the end of June and then increase to a three-times-per-week service.

“On October 20, we are particularly happy to welcome to the family Aer Lingus, who will inaugurate a three-times-weekly service to Barbados from Manchester, providing seamless connection from Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast in Northern Ireland to Barbados.”

She said come October, Barbados will also welcome Lufthansa’s long-haul leisure brand Eurowings Discover, which is expected to operate a three times per week flight until April 2022.

Condor is also expected to resume service from November through April, with a twice-weekly service.

Carter said: “From the Canadian perspective, once the federal government relaxes its protocols and travel restrictions we expect to have Air Canada resume daily and weekly services from both Toronto and Montreal.

“WestJet has confirmed that they will resume a weekly winter service from November through winter 2021/2022.”

In relation to regional airlift, she said InterCaribbean Airways and Caribbean Airlines are operating limited schedules from some islands to Barbados and they are expected to increase in coming months, Air Antilles has expanded its destinations to return with a four-times-per-week service from Martinique and Guadeloupe once those borders are open.

Carter said negotiations are ongoing to get Copa Airlines back for the 2021/2022 winter tourist season from Latin America and there was “some interest from carriers from Guyana and Suriname which supports Barbados’ linkage to the Latin American market”.

She promised a phased re-entry strategy would be implemented to maximize opportunities in each market, adding that the immediate focus will be on driving arrivals from the UK and the US.

“Simultaneously, we will continue to engage with our efforts to build on our success in Europe, Canada and the Caribbean and Latin America to ensure that when travel fully resumes from these territories Barbados is the preferred choice,” said Carter.

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)