WIT THE BRITISH POUND STERLING reaching an eight-year high against the euro, making most European countries dramatically less expensive as holiday destinations – and the Canadian dollar below 80 cents when compared with its southern neighbour – the pressure is on to make Barbados perceived as offering value for money.
So when a Spanish-based bank with a huge presence in the United Kingdom recently published the results of a survey entitled Barbados – Caribbean Island Is Most Expensive Place To Visit, it should send a huge tidal wave of realism to our various tourism policymakers and planners that we have to either redress this reality or perception, or risk losing more market share.
Santander United Kingdom (UK) serves more than 14 million customers from 921 branches and 66 regional corporate business centres in the UK. As of December 31, 2014 it was the most switched to bank, attracting one in four new retail accounts.
In the survey, largely undertaken by Opinium Research/ONS Travel Trends 2014, it stated: “British people visiting Barbados will feel a particular nasty sting in their wallets this summer, having to fork out an average of 109 pounds a day in spending money – including the cost of a hotel.”
Around the world, Barbados was placed as number one in a list of the ten most expensive countries for British people to visit based on average daily spend. Second was the United Arab Emirates. Just as alarming, is that Santander concluded that the daily costs of visiting Barbados have risen from 70 pounds or nearly 38 per cent since 2010.
To put this in context, they quote Poland and India where UK travellers spend on average 30 pounds per day with not a single other Caribbean destination making the top ten in terms of high costs.
With this research now widely circulated among some of the best selling newspapers, journals, websites and social media, I really wonder if the current administration has thought through the impending consequences on prices that the latest tax-grabbing Budget will have? Not just on locals, but our visitors as well.
With value added tax being placed on several food items that the majority deemed staples, this will inevitably further push us as a destination further out of reach for many more, including the number of families who form a critical part of the overall arrival statistics.
One thing for sure, with Santander’s 14 million account holders in the UK, even if you assume it is a single named customer, represents 22 per cent of the entire UK population, customers who are being told we are the world’s most expensive destination. Our marketing people have a mountain to climb to even try and redress the potential damage.
Perhaps the way forward might include smart partnering with Santander to give its customers special concessions on Barbados when paying with one of their debit or credit cards or no fee currency exchange.
We could even take it to a higher level with a destination affinity card offering regular win a holiday to Barbados prizes for those who use that method of payment.
