EDITORIAL - We are tourism!

Tourism is said to be our greatest revenue and foreign exchange earner and given that reality, it is imperative that Barbadians in general be reminded about the importance of the tourism industry to the overall development of the country and also, the need to attract investment, both local and foreign, to help advance this sector.

In earlier years the slogan was ‘Tourism is Our Business, Let’s Play Our Part’; today while the slogan is different, the idea is basically the same. In recent months we have been pushing the ‘I am Tourism’ public awareness and education campaign, aimed at placing Barbadians centre stage in the industry, even encouraging our people to pay visits to the places we call tourist attractions, and which we commonly, and unfortunately so, believe are only for our visitors. That is certainly not the case and as such we agree with and endorse the call of the Barbados Tourism Product Authority for us to see these national treasures as places that we too can visit and enjoy.

If we can get the buy-in of the public to help further push the sector, it will help to ensure that the visitor experience is even better, as Barbadians would have a vested interest in it, and it will help to set us apart from other tourist destination here in the Caribbean and even further afield. But as steps are taken to encourage local participation, efforts must also be made for this country to explore and embrace, even more, other markets for both our tourists and investments. In fact, I am convinced that if we do not go this route we run the risk of being left behind. With tourism numbers in terms of both long stay and cruise climbing steadily over the last few years, we cannot rest on our laurels, we must move forward with gusto and work hard at keeping that momentum going.

In that vein the Ministry of Tourism must be commended for pursuing new markets and they must follow through on the ideas to work at attracting visitors from non traditional markets including China and Panama. The latter gets our wholehearted support given the relationship that already exists between our countries. That brings us to the role that the Diaspora can also play in terms of promoting Barbados as an ideal tourist destination.

How often have you hear it said that you can find a Barbadian anywhere in the world? So far that has proven to be true and Panama is certainly a place where you will find Barbadians, or at least persons with Barbadian roots –the descendants of those who worked on building the Panama Canal. We must find more creative ways of encouraging Barbadians and the descendants of Barbadians living overseas to take their vacations here. Such a move not only helps to bolster our tourism industry, but would allow them to reconnect with their distant relatives.

Again we say it is important that Barbadians be reminded about the importance of the tourism industry to the overall development of the country and so it cannot be business as usual in the tourism sector. We need to create linkages with other sectors if we are to take the tourism industry and the economy as a whole, to a new level.

So to the tourism players, we say it is time that greater efforts are made to link tourism with agriculture and manufacturing just to name a few. Yes, some strong and turbulent economic waters remain ahead of us, but we can weather any storm if we work together.