Tourism dive

The decline in tourist arrivals in Barbados is proving to be deeper than expected.
The president of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Patricia Affonso-Dass said yesterday that current trends indicate that the initial forecast decline of 1.1 per cent over 2011 “will in fact be deeper and may reach a decline of up to nine per cent for 2012”.
In her maiden report to the BHTA at its third quarterly general meeting at Hilton Barbados, Affonso-Dass said long-stay arrivals for the first three weeks in August were down by 13 per cent, and year to date 5.2 per cent in all markets except for Trinidad and Tobago.
There is also a decline in August of 17.9 per cent out of the Britain, which is the leading source market.