Barbadian tourism expert Alvin Jemmott believes the sector is “in a relatively good position” but has significant room for improvement.
The former chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. warned that there could come a time when no amount of public relations would be enough to quell crime-related concerns for the country’s tourism product.
While supporting ongoing source market diversification, he recommended an increased focus on domestic tourism, a deeper dive into tourism data to inform strategic decisions for the industry, more support for the small hotel sector, and a cohesive regional approach for intra-Caribbean travel.
Jemmott, who was Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association president and, more recently, deputy chairman of Intimate Hotels of Barbados, shared these views in an interview with Barbados Business Authority ahead of the 2025-2026 winter tourist season, which starts next month.
Still desirable destination
Asked for his assessment of Barbados’ tourism sector, the chairman and chief executive officer of Jemmott Hotel Management Inc. said: “Currently, I believe that Barbados’ tourism industry is in a relatively good position. Despite all of the turmoil that is taking place worldwide, people are still travelling and Barbados is still a desirable destination.
“Are there concerns about the crime wave? Absolutely, but for the most part we seem to be staying ahead of the communication and the crime has been mostly local-on-local crime and not directly impacting visitors to the island.
“My warning about the crime, however, is that there is a limit to the amount of public relations before we reach a breaking point.”
He added: “Are there questions about hurricanes? Yes! But there has been a historical mis-representation about our geographical position in relation to severe weather systems, but again we continue to stay ahead of the information.”
Diversify source markets
Jemmott welcomed efforts to diversify Barbados’ tourism source markets,
stressing that “tourism is too important to our survival and economic growth to be at the mercy of one or two source markets”.
“We recently saw the arrival of direct flights from Africa. To me this is a good thing. I do not know everything that is happening behind the gateways, but success for this venture will take more than the efforts of the Government and the tourism officials,” he suggested.
“We have to engage more at the operational and local levels and reinforce the messaging of the Government and the tourism officials. I have long been a supporter of market diversification and I’m glad to see that it’s happening.”
With visitor arrivals from the United States (US) now surpassing those from the traditional number one market, the United Kingdom (UK), the former hotel general manager said this was “a big elephant in the room”.
Barbados Statistical Service data reported by the Central Bank showed that Barbados welcomed 191 024 visitors from the US between January and September, compared with 160 749 from the UK in the same period.
For the US market, this was an increase of 20 429 visitor arrivals (12 per cent), while it was a 4 240 decline in arrivals from the UK (2.6 per cent).
Issues of spend
“Not enough discussion takes place about the satellite system of accounting within the tourism industry. For the most part we have focused on head counts and bed counts as the key performance indicators of success,” he asserted.
“I have long been an advocate of taking a deeper dive into issues of spend, the cost of generating a booking and looking at it by source markets and the impact of the longer stay customer, versus the shorter stays and the quick turnover.
“Unless something has shifted drastically, the UK visitor still has a longer length of stay on island than the US visitor. We need the deeper dive into the stats in order to make more strategic decisions,” he said.
Intra-regional travel was another issue Jemmott deemed worthy of more focus at a Caribbean level.
There were 75 068 visitors from CARICOM countries in the first three quarters of the year, an 8.2 per cent increase over the 70 309 who visited the island in those nine months in 2024.
While this January to September figure is the highest since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, official statistics show it remains below the 78 017 average CARICOM visitorship recorded between 2017 and 2019.
“Intra-regional travel is much more than a Barbadian issue. I believe that this requires a whole of Caribbean effort. From where I sit, I’m not seeing a cohesive regional approach to this very important subject,” he said.
“The recent initiative between Barbados and Dominica is good, but my question is; what happens when the new airport in Dominica becomes operational and they are able to attract more direct flights from our same source markets? Will the partnership still have the same focus or will focus shift?”
Domestic tourism, including staycations, was another issue engaging his attention, calling this niche “big business worldwide but it requires a consistent focus”.
“Let’s not lose focus, part of the original intentions surrounding the development of the staycations were to education the locals more about the Barbados tourism product and place them in a much better position to offer suggestion to their families, friends and the diaspora as we interact with them,” he recalled.
Maintaining foreign exchange
Secondly, Jemmott said, staycations were also an effort to “maintain more of the foreign exchange earning instead of just earning at one end and spending it at the other end through the same source as we earned”.
He suggested, thirdly, that this initiative was intended to provide economic opportunity “for anyone desirous of making a living from the industry. In my mind the efforts have to be consistent and not built only around the big events”.
The small hotel sector was an important part of the discussion around Barbados’ future tourism prospects.
Jemmott reminded that “the small hotels have always had a very important role to play in the Barbados tourism ecosystem”.
“Not everyone coming to the island wants to stay in the bigger or more high-end properties and that’s what makes the small hotel sector so very important,” he noted.
“There are three things that I believe that we need to pay more attention to. One, product quality, two, price points and, three, the sense of presence in relation to marketing and public relations.
“In my opinion, the sector is far too quiet and when there is noise it’s almost always made by the same 20 per cent of this sector. We simply have to be more present and social media definitely provide part of that answer,” added Jemmott, who has been in the tourism sector since starting as a waiter in 1981 at Sam Lord’s Castle, St Philip. (SC)
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