Mottley calls for joint effort to drive earnings from tourism

Even as the tourism sector continues to battle three crises, Prime Minister Mia Mottley wants to see the economic benefits of visitors coming to Barbados reach $4 billion annually.

Speaking during the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) 70th Annual General Meeting at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre today, Mottley urged players in both the public and private sectors to work together to find ways to bring back tourists to the island in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said while the Government-led Barbados Employment and Sustainable (BEST) programme had been rolled out in an effort to save jobs and stop businesses from going under, new initiatives now had to be implemented to reinvigorate Barbados’ tourism sector.

The Prime Minister however acknowledged that the industry was under threat from the COVID crisis, the food and fuel crisis and the climate change crisis.

“When the sea is choppy and when it is rough you can’t swim as you normally do. The first thing is to keep your head above water and that’s what the BEST programme was designed to do. It didn’t work for everybody but it worked for quite a few. The question is with the swells now coming again, what is it that will allow us to keep our heads above water and each of you has an opinion that is valid whether from the public or private sector and we will listen because if it was not for a national approach to Covid – that was anchored with international support from Cuba, Ghana, WHO and PAHO – we would not have succeeded,” Mottley maintained.

“What is it now that will bring back our tourism industry such that the comments I made to you in June 2018, when I left you literally in the other room to go and meet with the IMF? It’s ironic that the next meeting is this week when the IMF Director is coming to meet us instead of me going to Washington and that in itself tells a story to you as to how we have been able to manage the last four years…

“What is it now that we can do to resume those targets that I set with us being able to have a million tourists a year earning for us at least $4 billion a year in capital? What do you and what do we as a nation have to do and what does the ministry and the individual Barbadian have to do for us to make sure that these targets are real?” Mottley asked. (RB)