Visitor spend up, says Sandiford-Garner

Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, Irene Sandiford-Garner, has described as “another untruth” claims that visitor spend has declined in 2016.

In the Upper House’s debate on the Appropriations Bill 2017 earlier this week, she said that visitor arrivals had reached record highs last year and that despite claims to the contrary, average daily spend had also increased, with the island raking in more than $900 million.

“There was an estimated US$167.41 (in 2016) compared to US$164.40 (in 2015), which was spent every day by the average visitor,” she outlined.

Breaking it further down by market, she stated that United Kingdom tourists recorded the highest spend, dropping US$184 daily – a 4.1 increase over 2015’s spend, while visitors from Canada and the Caribbean also recorded increased spend.

“The remaining markets all recorded declines in average daily spend, but we saw increases in our average spend, so we are looking at a total of $984.3 million brought into this economy in the last year, which is $83 000 more, or 9.2 per cent more money was spent by our visitors in Barbados in 2016,” she stressed.

Sandiford-Garner also lamented that on some Sundays when large numbers of cruise ships came to port, they met closed doors to businesses in the City, while urging the business sector to take advantage of the change in legislation, which allows the opening of stores on weekends and bank holidays.

Speaking on cruise ship passenger numbers, she outlined that these were up in 2016, with half of a million tourists visiting these shores.

“So where we would have welcomed the 600 000-plus air passengers, Barbados welcomed 594 984 cruisers last year and this is up 1.4 per cent from the previous year,” she stressed.

In addition, she highlighted that for every month during the review period, except September, there was an increase in long-stay visitors.