BTMI boosting business

William ‘Billie’ Griffith, CEO of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) has reaffirmed the focus of the organisation is to continue to drive business for Barbados and forge the connections needed to continue to develop the brand.

While speaking to The Barbados Advocate at the Connect Barbados Farewell Reception at Sandals Royal, in the midst of election time on the island, he indicated, “Everyone is into the local politics, not discounting that, but what I have instilled in the BTMI is that our job is to drive business, our focus is to continue to push business for Barbados and expose the brand to different markets.”

In terms of Connect Barbados, he explained, “Connect Barbados is in its 13th year and this year the theme is ‘Blending Opportunities’ and blending business opportunities ties into the Year of Culinary Experiences which we have as our theme for this year...”

“.. We have had actually 50 tour operator companies on the island, over 70 delegates from those companies, they range from the US, UK, Canada, Caribbean and Latin America, the largest contingent is from the UK. The objective of the week was to meet with the hoteliers on the island, we had over 92 hoteliers who registered and it was a structured programme where people request appointments with each other. The idea is that we bring these tour operators to the island because not every hotel has the opportunity to go out and do the tours and trade shows.”

The CEO highlighted, “The feedback from the tour operators has been excellent. Our tourism performance continues to trend well, it has been a positive season in terms of growth, when we look at the advance bookings on all the major airlines, all the major tour operators and the feedback that we have received this week is that the summer and the upcoming winter seems to be trending well. The real growth driver has been the increasing seat capacity that we have had on the island. When we look this summer and into to winter as well it is positive, we are cautiously optimistic but we are going in the right direction.” (NB)