Poor customer service by some Barbadians is among the areas flagged by visitors in an exit survey, says chief executive officer of the Barbados Tourism and Marketing Inc. (BTMI) Andrea Franklin.
“We are hearing concerns about just general service and I think locals are even seeing it as well. I think we’ve gone on record before that we have to address our service because Barbados is not a cheap destination and persons are paying good money to come to the destination,” Franklin said.
“And they expect if they pay that amount of money that the quality of the service and the product and the experience that they expect is what would be delivered. We are seeing some niggling issues as it relates to service standards and the comments that we see in the exit surveys.”
Franklin said exit surveys also had comments about garbage on the beaches and at the side of the road. She said these could be fixed, but they had to be monitored. The BTMI also shared this information with agencies responsible for these areas, including experiences at the air and sea ports.
“The service standards is something that continues to bother me and I know that throughout the industry, as I talk to our partners, that’s one of the things that is a source of concern. Now that we’ve gone into the slow season, this is a time that we use for training and retraining and helping people to understand not only customer service, but understanding the overall impact, importance of tourism.
“It’s not only for the workers directly within the tourism industry, but for us to really educate Barbadians of the importance of tourism to our economy and that everybody has a part to play because people will come and interact. They’re interacting at these gas stations, they’re interacting in the minimarts, and those are not people that we consider direct tourism employees, but they certainly leave an impression if they don’t deliver good service to our visitors; but as I said, it’s not only about our visitors, but it’s to our own people as well.”
In 2004, the Government introduced the National Initiative for Service Excellence (NISE) with an aim “to help Barbados consistently deliver service excellence in all fields of work”, but it has since been disbanded.
Reflecting on calendar year 2024, Franklin said there was a ten per cent growth on 2023, but it did not take into consideration the overall winter season which ended April 15, 2025. She declined to give “in-house” figures, directing the
Sunday Sun to the Barbados Statistical Service (BSS).
The BSS figures were up in all of the major source markets except the United Kingdom, which fell from 243 857 to 239 045. The biggest area of growth was the United States (US), which jumped from 176 614 arrivals to 228 128.
Franklin said this was driven by increased airlift by carriers Delta, American Airlines and JetBlue from Boston, New York, Atlanta and Philadelphia. Marketing efforts are expanding from the traditional north-east corridor to the Mid-Atlantic region and also to the West Coast.
“We had in excess of 50 000 additional seats out of the US market. Hence, the US market in terms of their growth, had a really good season, and that was primarily led because of the increase in airlift, but also in terms of the increased marketing that we have been doing in preparation and in support of the additional airlift.”
Arrivals from CARICOM increased from 88 524 to 92 706, mainly in the summer time. Efforts in Europe are being ramped up with Condor from Germany and the return of KLM airlines to boost the 27 821 in 2024, down from 28 306 in 2023.
The Canadian market also grew from 77 140 to 87 142 in 2024, through “faithful” partner Air Canada, which introduced a wide body aircraft, and West Jet.
Franklin said the BTMI was continuing marketing efforts in Latin America, in the Gulf region of the Middle East and Africa. Increased efforts are also under way to target countries with reverse seasons – those which have winter while Barbados is in the hotter months, and in the Gulf Coast where summer temperatures are even hotter than here.
The BSS is still updating its 2025 figures, but according to the report from the Governor of the Central Bank for January to March, all of the major markets grew, with the exception of the United Kingdom.
Franklin said they were looking forward to the opening of new hotels as well as revamped attractions like the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, adding that they were keeping an eye on external factors such as the US and conditions which might dampen consumer spending. (SAT)
Unfortunately a few Bajans don’t understand the trickle down effect of there bad manners and poor attitudes at work. the garbage on the beach is an easy fix, pay people to clean up the mess on beaches and place enough garbage receptively on the beach itself and not in the car park. The benefits of paying someone to go around and clean up garbage on Brownes, Accra and Brandons beaches far outweighs the cost.