The Barbados 12-month Welcome Stamp programme has proven to be the saviour for the island’s tourism as the number of short-stay-visitors plummeted in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is according to Minister of Tourism Senator Lisa Cummins who said on Tuesday the programme, designed to attract long-stay visitors to compensate for the drastic decline in short-stay visitors, had to date netted “around 5 000” visitors from around the globe, and the demand continued to grow.
Speaking during a Caribbean Tourism Organisation virtual destination press briefing which gave updates on the tourism performance of several Caribbean countries, she spoke of “a tremendous drop” in visitor arrivals this year, but suggested an improvement in the coming winter season.
“Since January up to September we have had just under 50 000 arrivals for the year. That is considerably less than we are used to having,” Cummins said, adding that figure represented a decrease of just over 71 per cent over the corresponding period in 2020. (GC)
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