THE BARBADOS STATISTICAL Service has sought to clarify the wording contained in its preface to its Annual Report of Tourists Arrivals for 2015 published earlier in the year.
The preface was the subject of an article written by this reporter for the BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY of Monday, October 3, 2016.
My interpretation of the preface was that airline crew who spent at least one night in Barbados between arriving and departing the island were being counted as long-stay [overnight] visitors for the first time.
In my article I wrote that: “I wanted to know why the Immigration Department, as the BSS document stated, might have decided to add overnighting airline crews. Were they just adopting something other tourism countries were doing?”
The preface to the tourism arrivals report, as I read it, suggested that this was now being done – for the first time. It stated that “As of December 2014, the Immigration Department defined a new classification to allow for the identification of crew members who spend at least one (1) night in Barbados. In light of this new information the BSS has decided to classify those crew cases as Business/Conference arrivals. This adjustment should therefore be taken into consideration when studying historical trends against current and future purpose of visit statistics for tourist arrivals.”
In a response, Trevor David, acting deputy director of the Barbados Statistical Service, acknowledged that based on the information contained in the preface, “one could easily come to the conclusion that for the first time we were including ‘crew’ in the business/pleasure categories for trip purpose”.
However, he noted: “This is not the case. Barbados has always included crew who spend at least one night on the island, in business/pleasure categories.”
In explaining how the new classification came in to being Mr David said the BSS was informed by the Immigration Department that they had introduced a new code specifically to “identify crew that has to overnight in Barbados” and for these individuals their trip purpose was entered as either business/pleasure” in the past. He added that: “It was our understanding at the time that this change resulted as a response to some queries the Immigration Department was receiving.”
But Trevor David added that that the term crew is not restricted to “airline crew” but also personnel from other types of vessels, such as cruise ships. Since Barbados is heavily into home porting this could be “a critical variable for future analysis”, said Mr David.
In addition, he said, crews exhibit some of the same characteristics as long stay visitors. “They stay in hotels, visit attractions and generally contribute to the tourism spending in the economy,” he said. “In some cases, these crew come into the island to join cruise ships or to pilot return charters back to their home bases, or are just on furlough.”
In 2015, total overnight arrivals increased by just over 72 000 to reach a record high of 591 872, compared with 519 635 arrivals recorded the previous year, an almost 14 per cent increase.
But the overall point being clarified was that crew members from vessels on both land and sea have always been counted in the tourism arrivals stats as long as they stay at least overnight.
This appears to be a policy that attracts some controversy in the industry, since I came across a few countries that say they don’t count crew members even if they do overnight in the country.
Patrick Hoyos is a journalist and publisher specialising in business. Email: pathoyos@gmail.com
