BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul 31 2015 – During the first six months of 2015 Barbados recorded 303,592 long stay visitors, the first time the destination has ever topped 300,000 visitors in the January – June period in the 29 years of recording air arrivals tourism statistics.
This also represents a 14.3 percent increase or 37,945 more passenger arrivals over the comparative period in 2014.
Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc., Alvin Jemmott made the announcement during that organisation’s second quarterly press conference for 2015 at their Warrens headquarters.
“This exceptional double-digit performance has been credited as the primary reason for the 0.5 percent increase in local GDP and comes against the backdrop of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s (CTO) five percent growth projection for our region for 2015. It also surpasses the global industry forecast issued by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in January this year for international tourist arrivals to increase by 3 to 4 percent. Indeed, we are even above our own internal target for the year.” Jemmott said.
