Tourism industry doing well
Arrivals from major source markets into this country remain high, and tourism officials are hoping that this trend continues.
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport, Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner, speaking to the Civil Aviation (Amendment) Bill during the debate in the Senate earlier this week, said that the first six months of the year have been seeing a record amount of traffic flying into and out of the country, and thus a record number of visitors passing through the airport as well.
“You would have seen in January we were up 11.3 per cent, in February 5.5 per cent, and let me speak about them in total arrivals, so that you get an idea of the amount of people who come through this country.
“So in 2016, January 2016, you are looking at 62 485 people; February, 61 000 people; March 60 000; April we were down to 49 000 people, and we were up again 9.6 per cent over the previous period… and up until the 24th of June this year, we’d seen 33 026 people come into Barbados,” she said.
Contending that these figures are “no small feat”, the Parliamentary Secretary took the opportunity to congratulate those who have been responsible for keep those thousands of tourists safe as they come into and leave the country. Her comments came as she spoke to plans to restructure the Adams airspace. She disclosed that they have been working with a cartographer and a procedural designer regarding that restructuring, and have also awarded a contract to a company to provide the new surveillance system for the country.
“The international airline industry has spent billions of dollars to upgrade all of their aircraft with modern flight management systems, enabling them to navigate using what they call performance based navigation, which utilise satellite navigation and existing ground based navigational aids. And a requirement for all states, air navigation service providers of which we are one, is to upgrade their airspaces to accommodate this new development and this was introduced by ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation],” she explained.
Sandiford-Garner, noting that there are destinations already utilising the modern flight assessment systems, which are more economical and alleviate delays, she said Barbados also needs to get on board. She pointed out that the country’s failure to comply with those requirements within stipulated timeframes could actually result in airlines being attracted to destinations which have complied, resulting in a loss of revenue, which the country cannot afford at this time. (JRT)