BHTA set to meet Thursday to discuss impact of worrying rising COVID infections

The spike in COVID-19 cases in Barbados has thrown a dark cloud over the tourism sector’s anticipated bright winter season, with hotels already facing cancellations and more expected to come.

Chairman of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Geoffrey Roach conceded on Wednesday night that stakeholders were worried about the potential economic fallout and its Board will meet Thursday to address the development.

“We are seeing and hearing about more and more cancellations. People will be sceptical as the numbers rise, so there has been a number of cancellations; we expect that that will probably increase,” Roach told Barbados TODAY.

“Even though the business has been looking promising and has been for the last number of weeks, any threat to those potential forward bookings is a concern.”

Roach said the BHTA leadership was in the process of compiling the numbers to get a more informed picture of the situation facing the island’s bread and butter industry, which has been challenged since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last month, Minister of Tourism Senator Lisa Cummins was upbeat about a strong return to business for the upcoming winter season, after the island welcomed close to 50,000 visitors for the first nine months of the year.

That number was 10,000 fewer than the arrivals usually recorded monthly.

Minister Cummins was, however, optimistic of an improvement on the horizon, given strong bookings and increased airlift to the island.

“Beyond airlift and capacity for November, we are looking for a strong winter season and we are hopeful that we are also able to see a number of key initiatives coming into the industry, specifically from cruise and a number of investment-type activities that we will share, anchored around the aviation sector,” she had told a virtual state of the industry media update, which was organised by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO).

But Roach noted that the significant increase in COVID-19 cases, along with the recently issued United States travel advisory against travel to Barbados which was sparked by that increase, had served a double whammy to the tourism destination.

“But, you know, the truth is I think we all knew that if we got to where we are now, travel advisories were possibilities,” he said.

On Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Barbados, indicating a “very high level of COVID-19” in the country.

In the notice of its highest COVID-19 alert, the CDC told Americans they should avoid travel to Barbados.

“If you must travel to Barbados, make sure you are fully vaccinated before travel. Because of the current situation in Barbados, even fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants,” it added.

The latest COVID-19 dashboard published on Wednesday showed there were 300 new cases recorded the day before, taking the total to 9,832 since the first case was reported in March 2020.

So far, 86 people have died since the start of the pandemic.
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)