Promising winter season

Tourism officials are reporting a steady influx of visitors and full occupancy at several hotels as the winter tourist season progresses.

Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) chief executive officer Rudy Grant spoke about the bright outlook for the island’s main foreign exchange-earning sector on Sunday at the Grantley Adams International Airport, where three inaugural flights touched down – United Airlines 388 from Newark; United Airlines from Dulles, Washington; and Virgin Atlantic 233 from Edinburgh.

“There is a high level of confidence in Barbados. You are seeing a return of visitor arrivals, you are seeing a return of airlift, and that is critical for the growth and development of our tourism sector,” he said.

“From the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association perspective, we are seeing good projections. The occupancies are looking very promising for this winter period, and we are anticipating that we will have quite a bit of activity. Of course, our hotels are very excited with this, having more visitors come to Barbados.”

Minister of Tourism and International Transport Senator Lisa Cummins said that given Sunday’s inaugural flights and the additional airlift the island had received in the last several months, officials were confident the sector would bounce back in a big way.

She said stakeholders would be working to ensure arriving flights were filled to capacity.

“I am confident that the Barbados tourism team will be continuing to have aggressive marketing in the US market, behind the gateway, to make sure that we fill these seats. Most of our seats coming out of our traditional and pre-existing gateways are flying full; as you know it’s very difficult to get a seat for Barbados especially coming out of the United States.

“So we expect over the course of the coming days and weeks we will see an aggressive push to fill the seats on our new flights coming in out of Newark and out of Dulles,” the Tourism Minister said. (SB)