Never a factor that can be discounted in Barbados’ ongoing assessment of its tourism fortunes from one season to the next, airlift capacity, remains central to the CARICOM member country’s economy. Unavoidably, the issue of some of the dynamics that impact visitor arrivals remain a standard item in discourses regarding the state of the state of the tourism sector. Airlift capacity, an issue that surfaces with monotonous regularity would appear, once again, to be occupying a prominent place on the wider tourism industry agenda.
“It’s the same this year as it has been in previous years,” is the recurring message from the Central Bank of Barbados as staff emerge from meetings with airlift on the agenda. Other issues that are commonly ventilated at these meetings include long-stay visitor trends and economic growth, according to the Monday February 17 issue of the Barbados Nation. The issue of the inextricable link between tourism and the overall state of health of the Barbados economy is a factor which neither the Barbados government nor the country’s populace, as a whole, ever lose sight of, so that the post-Covid 19 pandemic and the attendant recovery in airlift capacity, still remains one of the brighter sparks to impact the sector in recent years, Indeed, the post-Covid revival of the country’s tourism sector has been, for Barbados, a piece of good fortune that could easily be equated with successive seasons of record returns across the key crops in Guyana’s agriculture sector.