The summer season, from June to August, looks promising for bookings, based on reports from Barbados’ tourism source markets.
This was revealed by Minister of Tourism and International Transport, Senator Lisa Cummins, while addressing a press conference recently at Grantley Adams International Airport, following the launch of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc.’s Giant Postcard Summer Campaign Promotion.
The Minister said that despite a bleak outlook for the cruise industry, the summer bookings received for the island were increasing and he or she expected the numbers to extend since most individuals were booking summer trips last minute, as in comparison with the more advanced bookings traditionally done for the winter season.
Minister Cummins explained that the window for summer bookings for Barbados since 2018 has been significantly shorter than the bookings for winter.
“So, if you happen to are three, 4, five, or six months out from summer, it looks just a little soft and we begin to get just a little anxious, and we’re concerned that we aren’t seeing a major amount of traffic. But because the windows get shorter and it gets closer to summer then you definately begin to see the uptick….
“I’m completely satisfied to share that based on the reports from all of our overseas markets we’re seeing a really strong summer season being projected. Our airline partners out of the US market have already indicated that their load aspects are running on average around 75 per cent and in some instances even higher for some days…. Virgin Atlantic has already given a transparent indication of what their summer is looking like and it’s quite strong,” the Tourism Minister reported.
In relation to cruises, she said ships that might often visit Barbados in the course of the slower summer period were decommissioned and haven’t been replaced. Nevertheless, she said the 2022/2023 winter season was already looking promising and encouraged Barbadians to believe in “Brand Barbados”, because it seeks to rebuild and take “tourism forward”.
“I believe that if anything COVID taught us was that even within the worst of times, Barbados remained top of mind for lots of our travelers, especially those individuals who had been in lockdowns and didn’t have a chance to travel for the last two years, and we’re still seeing the extrapolation coming from the pent up demand where people haven’t been in a position to travel for the last two years.
“We saw that in winter, and we expect that we’re going to see that continuing throughout summer and the numbers which can be coming into us already suggest that that’s going to be the case, so we’re quite confident in what the summer season will seem like,” Minister Cummins stated. (BGIS)
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