BARBADOS has in recent times hitched its tourism star to the United Kingdom, moving away from the United States that had traditionally been its major arrivals market.And despite the buffeting of two recessions, this island continues to focus its attention on the UK and will do so for the foreseeable future in what authorities now acknowledge is a “mature market”.Indeed, the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) in its weekly Press offering recently revealed that the team at its UK office “has already begun laying the groundwork in order to secure a strong performance as the UK moves out of recession”. Key efforts include:• Maintaining the island’s image within the marketplace;• Increasing and encouraging continued loyalty to the island within the market; and • Sensitising and strengthening relations with key marketplace stakeholders.“The magnitude of the market continues to serve the island well,” the BTA said, “as UK visitor arrivals eclipse the total visitor arrivals for all other minor markets combined.“Although the megamarket still records the highest number of arrivals per month, over the past six months it has suffered a slump in the face of recession, which has posed several social and economic challenges.”The BTA said its efforts would include new initiatives and trade efforts within the UK market, along with leveraging media exposure to “rejuvenate brand presence”.But what are the chances of these initiatives and media efforts bearing the type of successes the BTA and its tourism partners expect from the UK?It could do them no harm to heed warnings from a respected international business intelligence and strategic marketing advisor, Euromonitor International, which has cautioned that the UK’s outbound tourism industry was not expected to resume growth until 2012.A new study said package holidays would lead the recovery due to the value-for-money and protection they provided customers.And as if to put a further damper on recovery prospects, the Euromonitor International’s Forecast Update – Recovery In Sight? launched last Thursday at the World Travel Market (WTM) Vision Conference suggested that the global travel and tourism industry would experience a “multi-speed” recovery taking up to a further four years to return to pre-global downturn levels.It said that “multi-speed” recovery would be kick-started by the developing economies as high unemployment and debt in developed countries hold back their growth.“Global international arrivals will not recover to pre-crisis 2008 levels until 2012, while incoming tourism receipts will not recover until 2013,” the report said.“Furthermore, the hotel sector will not fully recover to 2008 levels until 2014.“The recovery is led by Asia with China and India projecting economic growth of eight to ten per cent in 2010 and 2011. This compares to projections for the strongest western economy, Canada, of three to four per cent for the same period.“The Middle East and Africa were the only inbound regions to show arrivals growth during 2009, while Asia-Pacific is expected to show strong growth in 2010.“Europe’s high unemployment and mounting debt problems are holding back the continent’s travel industry growth. Spain’s unemployment rate is predicted to hit 20.7 per cent in 2011, with Germany’s reaching 9.2 per cent, Italy’s 8.9 per cent, Russia’s 9.5 per cent, and the UK’s unemployment rate hitting 7.9 per cent in 2011.”The report also quoted Euromonitor’s head of Travel and Tourism Research, Caroline Bremner, as saying that as the global travel industry began its slow road to recovery, dark clouds continued to hang over Europe as the region was expected to be one of the last to recover along with North America.So what of the UK specifically?The BTA reported that in addition to the global recession, a damning blow was further dealt to the airline industry as the Icelandic volcano disrupted service out of the region in April of this year.“Consequently,” the BTA added, “that month saw a drop of 16.8 per cent from April 2009.“However, the market rallied back in May 2010 with a stronger performance, recording 16 330 more visitors on the island over the previous month mainly due to the ICC Twenty20 World Cup.”It is against this backdrop, then, that the findings of the Euromonitor report should make for cautionary study by local tourism authorities who insist that the Uk should remain our main focus.The report noted that during the economic crisis of 2009, outbound tourism flows from the UK slumped 11.8 per cent compared with the previous 12 months.It predicted a further fall of 6.2 per cent this year, with a drop of 1.6 per cent expected in 2011.“Positive growth figures return in 2012, although in volume terms the UK outbound industry will remain far below pre-crisis levels, amounting to a loss of 13 million outbound travellers over the course of four years,” the report said.“An improvement of two per cent is predicted in 2012 followed by 2.5 per cent the following year. However, growth then slows in 2014 to 1.5 per cent to reach 57 million departures.”The macroeconomic trends which drove the double-digit decline in 2009 were still relevant for 2010, Euromonitor International said, with unemployment the major concern for Britons.It added that package holidays, which fell by seven per cent during 2009, would remain popular because of the value-for-money and protection they provided customers.While many destinations remained expensive due to sterling’s weakness, domestic tourism within the UK also dropped in 2008/9 although at a slower rate than previously.
