Barbados will be targeting new tourism markets as part of a strategy to increase visitor arrivals.
Minister of Tourism and International Transport Ian Gooding-Edghill said his ministry had developed policies focused on attracting tourists from Africa and the Gulf States and also Asia and the Pacific.
He outlined these plans yesterday during the Appropriation Bill, 2026 debate in response to questions from Minister of Sports and Community Development Charles Griffith, who asked what new tourism markets would be targeted in the new financial year.
“The only way we can continue to grow Barbados’ tourism is to seek out new and emerging markets and as a strategy and as a policy position, the ministry has taken the view that we need to go into additional markets,” Gooding-Edghill said.
“We’ve therefore taken the policy decision, to be executed and implemented by the [Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.], to go into Africa and the Gulf states, combine that as one market at this point in time and then to go into Asia and the Pacific market.
“If you look at global statistics, certainly [United Nations] tourism statistics, you will see that both Asia and the Pacific continue to represent very strong growth globally into other markets and we are working at a pace.”
The minister said that once both policy documents were submitted to his ministry, they would then be sent to Cabinet for formal notification.
“. . . We believe that if we continue to grow and build out the Asia Pacific market, as well as the Africa and Gulf states, that will present a wonderful growth opportunity for Barbados,” he said.
“So we are going to be going full steam ahead in the forthcoming financial year. There has to be a presence in the market . . . and once we get the awareness, then we move into a lot of what we call the detailed positioning of the market in order for us then to generate additional seat capacity.”
“It will take us some time to develop both markets. For example, when we went into Latin America, it took us not so long to develop market and as a result of that, we got fights coming into Barbados,” Gooding-Edghill added.
“And if we want to build out international connections, certainly between Dallas and Chicago, to specifically deal with a lot of the flights that come in from Asia to Pacific and elsewhere, it is an opportunity for us to strengthen that market.”
