More Emphasis On Repeat Visitors

MORE emphasis should be placed on securing repeat visitors than on increasing the number of visitors who come to Barbados in general.

This was the suggestion of President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI), Mr. Andy Armstrong, who made the remarks on Wednesday, April 25th, during the Chamber’s April Business Luncheon at the Hilton Barbados, which took the form of a panel discussion on the topic: “Is the Barbados Tourism Model Still working?”

Maintaining that more emphasis must be placed on securing repeat visitors, Mr. Armstrong made some suggestions for investments in infrastructure which will improve visitor experience and in so doing, increase the number of repeat visitors. He used examples such as the BCCI’s Revitalisation of Bridgetown Initiative (TRBI).

“We need to shift some funds into areas such as the Revitalisation of Bridgetown. The key goal with the Chamber’s initiative is to get more locals and more visitors to come to Bridgetown. The UNESCO World Heritage Inscription has added another reason and opportunity to revitalise our capital city. Let’s make long floated concepts such as a regular ‘changing of the guard’, a regular opening and closing of the Chamberlain Bridge and the renovation of the Empire Theatre a reality, so that Bridgetown becomes a must visit for every tourist,” the President suggested.

He made a similar case for Oistins, calling for support of the 1652 Foundation which is seeking to rebuild the Mermaid Tavern where the Barbados Charter was signed 360 years ago.

Mr. Armstrong further pointed out that if Bridgetown and Barbados in general can be made more interesting for locals, it will in turn be more interesting for visitors, encouraging them to stay longer, spend more money, and return often.

Other panelists included Barbados Tourism Authority President and CEO Mr. David Rice, President of the Barbados Bankers’ Association Mr. Horace Cobham and Managing Director of the Bougainvillea Resort, Mr. Gordon Seale. The moderator was Ms. Kaymar Jordan, Editor-In-Chief of the Nation Publishing.

S. Abed & Co. Ltd

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I t has been a great two years – thank you to everyone in the BCCI for giving me this privilege and for your support over the last two years.

Shortly after the election the council met in June 2010 and we decided on three main pillars for the period 2010-2012. These were the Revitalization of Bridgetown initiative, the green economy and public and private sector reform.

We wanted to develop TRBI to the point where it became an on-going activity of the BCCI. During the period we made great strides – putting on 5 “Bridgetown Alive” events, including the extremely popular “Duty Free Shopping Day for locals”, making Bridgetown the first major city in the Caribbean to become fully wi-fi in collaboration with LIME, implementing a “Light up Bridgetown” campaign in collaboration with Barbados Light & Power and the Ministry of Transport and Works and appointing a full time coordinator. Lalu Vaswani and Sharon Christie, with help from many others, took charge of this initiative and made sure that it evolved and I thank them all for their sustained efforts. With the recent inscription of Bridgetown and its Garrison as a UNESCO world heritage site we feel confident that our capital city will get the attention that it deserves and that we can achieve even greater things in the near future.

We set out to put the importance of the green economy on the national agenda and with leadership from Roger Blackman and Andre Gibson and the efforts of many others we succeeded. During our green seminar in June 2010 we realised that we had tapped into a community who were very keen on the green economy and who were only looking for the opportunity to be heard and encouraged. With the Chamber’s encouragement the Barbados Renewable Energy Association (BREA) was formed. We lobbied strongly for cabinet to approve the wind farm in St. Lucy, which they did in December 2010. We persuaded the social partners to include in Protocol VI, which was signed on May 1, 2011, the national goal of becoming the “most environmentally advanced green economy in the Caribbean and Latin America”. We partnered with the Ministry of the Environment and the United Nations Environment Program to produce a green economy scoping study for Barbados. This study will be presented at the upcoming Rio + 20 summit in June and is further proof of the wide support that has been assembled to meet our national goal. We went through a program with green Business Barbados to have our headquarters become green certified and we received this award at our January 2012 luncheon. We believe that the green movement in Barbados has now gathered sufficient momentum that it is self-renewing and we are very proud of the Chamber’s role in being the catalyst.

With public and private sector reform we were a regular and vocal contributor to the social partnership meetings. On occasions when the head of the BPSA was absent the Chamber took the lead for the private sector. We used that forum and others to push the idea that the private and public sectors needed to change and adapt to the times and that we needed to constantly push to achieve this.

We lobbied to be included as a member of the steering committee for the Barbados Competitiveness program. This program is intended to improve Barbados’ competitiveness by making reforms in Customs, Immigration and Town and Country Planning. This program does not appear to have the support of senior members of the civil service which only emphasizes how important public sector reform is.

The Chamber will continue to lobby behind the scenes and in public for this program to be allowed to happen.

During the last 2 years we built partnerships with as many like-minded associations as we could. We signed MOUs with the Chamber of Commerce of Martinique, the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce from Prince Edward Island, Crimestoppers Barbados, the University of the West indies, the ADR Association of Barbados and LIME and we collaborated with the Barbados Manufacturers Association on shipping and demurrage issues, with ACCA on a number of seminars and with the Barbados International Business Association on the first of what we hope will become an annual joint luncheon. We are a strong supporter of cooperation among private sector agencies and are convinced that this cooperation allowed us to achieve much more than if we had gone it alone.

During the last 2 years there have been many highlights. Chief among these was the Gala Dinner in June 2011 to cap off our year of activities to celebrate our 185th anniversary. It was a wonderful occasion to celebrate the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and industry and our members. I’ve never felt prouder to be part be part of this great organisation. As I head into my last few weeks as president I would like to thank my executive director Lisa Gale and her team, my Senior Vice President Lalu Vaswani and the rest of council and all of the members of the Chamber who helped to make the last 2 years so rewarding.

I’m inspired by what the future holds and I ask you all to continue to support the efforts of the Chamber as we continue to articulate your issues and to ensure that the views of the private sector are given respect and attention.