Barbados prime minister pledges to support UK trade partners
The prime minister of Barbados has pledged the country will “work for the bottom lines” of UK trade partners as its tourism minister revealed the market accounted for more than 40% of the island’s visitors between January and September.
Speaking at a reception in London before attending the COP27 Summit in Egypt, prime minister Mia Mottley said the island’s dense population meant it had been slower to reopen than others in the Caribbean following the Covid pandemic.
But she added: “We may not be the fastest out of the gates but we will be the one that endures longest.”
Mottley said the pandemic had offered the opportunity to fine-tune the destination’s tourism offering and retrain staff and said tourism authorities were committed to working with UK partners to restore traditional markets and capitalise on new opportunities including those mixing work and leisure visits.
Referring to the country’s focus on coping with the pandemic before fully reopening, she said: “It was hard to contemplate normality (and) we needed to settle ourselves first, but we are now in a position to say ‘welcome’ again and to do it in a better way than before.”
She added: “There is a win-win opportunity for [UK] industry partners for whom Barbados will work for your bottom line as it works for ours.”
Speaking at the same reception, the country’s recently appointed minister of tourism and international transport Ian Gooding-Edghill said the UK accounted for more than 120,000 of a total 290,000 overseas arrivals between January and September.
He paid tribute to UK and Irish carriers including British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and Aer Lingus for their swift resumption of services and said tourism authorities were “carefully considering new growth strategies in the UK”.
He added: “After two-and-a-half years of unprecedented hiatus, Barbados tourism is back.”
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus’ Manchester-Barbados winter seasonal service has restarted after being introduced in October last year.
The airline will operate the route three times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays until April 30, 2023.
