BHTA, Intimate Hotels welcome Airbnb competition

The Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) and Intimate Hotels of Barbados (IHB) are not worried about the apparent competition the presence of Airbnb accommodations present.

In fact, speaking during a press conference that was held at the BHTA headquarters yesterday morning, Executive Director of IHB, Gayle Headley-Lowe, expressed that she welcomes the competition.

“In the tourism sector, you should not fear competition. Competition should actually drive you to improve and enhance your product and provide exceptional service to your guests. So we are not afraid of the competition,” she said.

Headley-Lowe noted that Airbnb is just one of the several entities that provided accommodation and noted that there will be several more in the future. She highlighted that their job was to enhance their services in order to remain on the cutting edge.

It was further explained that one of the ways in which you would see the hotels enhancing their services was to close for renovations during the slow period, which was usually during the summer months, so that they were able to work on the products and services that they offer in order to ensure that they were delivering only the best of their services and ac-commodations to prospective guests.

Rudy Grant, CEO of the BHTA, went on to express that over the years, you would see hotels operating on a year-round basis. He explained that one of the things they have been doing is ensuring that even during those periods where you would not traditionally see high numbers in occupancy, they were still able to keep the hotels opened due to the kind of marketing campaign they adapted in order to bring more persons to the destination.

“If you compare our tourism industry to 20 years ago, you would find less hotels actually closed during this period. You would also find that those hotels which actually do close, many of them are undergoing major renovations and what they’re doing is upgrading the property,” he said.