BARBADOS IS in the process of negotiating an air services agreement with China.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who made the disclosure Sunday night, says Government is hoping, through the agreement, to get some of the rich Chinese to visit Barbados, instead of spending all of their money in other destinations, including London.
He made the comments while addressing a meeting of the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) St Andrew constituency branch at the Alleyne School.
The DLP’s St Andrew candidate in last year’s general election and parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner said if Barbados could land just a small percentage of Chinese travel – nearly 100 million people – the numbers would be significant.
She also told the meeting that the Chinese were very interested in travelling to Barbados.
Nearly 100 million Chinese tourists visited foreign countries last year, and they are likely to extend their lead as the world’s biggest-spending travellers, Chinese state media reported recently.
A total of 97 million Chinese tourists left the country in 2013, up 14 million from the previous year, the state-run China Daily reported, citing official data from China’s National Tourism Administration.
The figures underline the rapid rise in the numbers of Chinese travelling abroad, who numbered just 29 million in 2004.
Chinese travellers spent US$114 billion overseas in 2012, making them the world’s biggest spenders ahead of Germans and American tourists, and are almost certain to have surpassed that record last year, the report said.
Both Prime Minister Stuart and Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy had meetings with China’s new Ambassador, Wang Ke, recently.
Stuart told the envoy and her delegation: “We have great interest in seeing Chinese nationals travelling to Barbados and taking in the cultural and other offerings. As we deepen our relationship, I hope more Chinese visitors will come here and I want to see also an increasing number of Barbadians going to China.”
Sealy said figures outlined in a recent United Nations report indicated that one out of every five tourists would come from China.
Wang said Chinese people were also looking at retirement facilities in the Caribbean for their elderly citizens because the weather was favourable. (TY)
