TDC Chairman appeals to Minister of Finance

Chairman of Tourism Development Corporation (TDC), Martin Ince is appealing to the Government of Barbados and the Minister of Finance to revisit the tax incentives that the TDC once received.

His appeal came during the Annual General Meeting of the TDC, which took place at Accra Beach Hotel and Spa yesterday afternoon.

“We have been lobbying with the Government and the Minister of Finance for the last two years. We used to get 150 per cent tax incentives for any contributions made to the TDC and that was reduced to 100 per cent two years ago,” he said.

“We are lobbying to have that reinstated and I appeal to the Minister of Finance and of Tourism to please [take a look] at reinstating this. The TDC is providing key funding and we’re taking pressure off the tourism funding bodies in Barbados.”

Ince noted they have been working closely with the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) and the Barbados Tourism Product Authority (BTPA) in many initiatives as they continue to raise the bar in Barbados to ensure that the brand Barbados remains first class.

The Chairman noted that the funding agency used their funds to contribute to either marketing or enhancing the Barbados product. He believed that the plenty contributions they made to certain entities over the past year attributed to the increase in tourists numbers that was recently released by the BTMI.

“The tourism numbers just released by the BTMI from January to August 2017 certainly look very promising,” he said.

He reported that the United Kingdom continues to be Barbados’ major market, there was a 7.4 per cent increase in the long stay visitors in the US market and there has also been a 20 per cent increase in the cruise side of tourism. He expected the winter season to be extremely busy as the airlines have seen solid bookings for this period.

“TDC has played our part in all the increases that we have been seeing,” he said.