THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE is stepping up its marketing for the Crop Over festival.
Noting that plans were “well ahead for Crop Over 2011,” Minister of Culture Stephen Lashley told a Press conference last Monday that meetings had already been held with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA), and the Ministry of Tourism to upscale the overseas marketing.
“Our aim is to ensure that this year we can invite to Barbados more visitors, and that, of course, translates to more business and the inflow of more foreign exchange into Barbados.
“We’ll be paying a lot of attention to our marketing,” he said.
Lack of airlift has been counterproductive to the marketing in New York, Trinidad and St Lucia under the Follow Me To Crop Over banner in recent years, and Lashley said that aspect was being addressed.
“It is important that we get that airlift . . . Because once we increase our spend in the area of marketing, it is going to be very clear that we’re going to have increased demand in terms of persons who want to come to Barbados,” he stated.
Lashley said some pre-marketing had been done and that the partners in the travel industry had assured him “they had started to put plans in place to ensure that we do have airlift in vital markets that we’re hoping to target to bring increased visitors to Barbados”.
He said the Follow Me To Crop Over promotion would be reviewed so that “maximum advantage” could be gained.
Lashley said the response from the North American and European markets during those traditionally low months gave “some comfort” that there should be increased visitor arrivals.
The minister encouraged Barbadians at all levels to see Crop Over as an “opportunity to assist in the economic recovery”. (YB)
