Winter season well poised to take off

Tomorrow’s official start of Barbados’ 2025/2026 tourism winter cruise season marks the beginning of a year with an encouraging outlook for the performance of the bedrock of the Barbados economy.

With projections for increased activity in most tourism sectors during the coming year, Minister of Tourism and International Transport Ian Gooding-Edghill says he remains “quietly encouraged for next year, based on the acknowledged success of the current year and the strong positive indications for the coming year”.

Sharing his plans with the Sunday Sun, Gooding-Edghill said: “In 2026 and beyond, we will be seeking to expand airlift into Barbados, with the implementation of Phase 2 of our airlift strategy. We are going to focus on expanded airlift from Canada, Manchester and Europe, in addition to other key gateways.”

He observed that Phase 1 of that strategy was already responsible for increased air seat capacity from the United States, with the return of American carriers Delta and American Airlines coming out of key US gateways, as well as the return of Copa Airlines from Latin America, which is an important source of airlift for a market which Barbados has been working to grow.

Marketing push

Gooding-Edghill added that key marketing activities and incentives would be implemented to increase visitor arrivals during the summer months, a period when arrival numbers have traditionally dropped. He announced as part of his 2026 policy initiatives the appointment of two new overseas Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI) directors in the first quarter of the year to boost promotion in markets Barbados was now targeting.

“We have appointed a director for Africa and the Gulf States, who will reside in Kenya, with satellite offices in Ghana and the UAE . . . . A second BTMI external director will be appointed for Asia and the Pacific to be located in China, with supporting staff and facilities deployed to cover this extensive market.

“It is intended that our presence in these emerging markets will result in significant exposure of the Barbados brand through intense marketing and personal interaction with the travel trade to increase visitor arrivals from those markets.”

Even as he works at positioning Barbados more strongly in the global tourism arena, Gooding-Edghill expressed awareness that those plans could be derailed by external forces, saying: “You will have to continuously monitor the geo-political landscape, the economies of our major source markets and consumer confidence and skilfully respond to any shocks that come our way in a timely manner.”

Stay-over bump Reporting to the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) membership last week, chairman Javon Griffith shared statistics which showed an increase in the number of stay-over visitors for 2025, which exceeded the pre-pandemic, highperformance year of 2019.

He also noted that cruise tourism had rebounded “appreciatively”, with passenger numbers trending upwards and airlift across the island’s source markets growing exponentially.

Griffith urged continuing airlift advocacy and the protection of and continuing focus on the growth of Barbados’ tourism in the US.

He advised securing and promoting the reinstated KLM airline service out of the Netherlands, while exploring the possibility of expanded European connectivity, as well as targeting tourism opportunities from Africa and the Middle East.

From an accommodation perspective, the BHTA chairman envisioned a 2026 with expanded hotel plant such as the Royalton Vessence, a Blue Diamond Resorts hotel on the West Coast due to open on July 1, 2026, and the Hotel Indigo on the South Coast, scheduled for a January 2026 opening.

He said these two hotels and others, either to be built or completed over the next two years, formed part of a massive plan that represents “well over US$1 billion in hotel and related real estate development”.

Against this background, the BHTA head projected a “cautiously optimistic” outlook for 2026.

He anticipated “modest single-digit growth in stay-over arrivals, contingent on stable economic conditions in source markets”, for the coming year while hailing the Minister of Tourism for his tireless efforts that resulted in new and returning airlift.

BTMI is ramping up its marketing, taking Barbados’ message to potentially new markets around the globe.

Chairman Andrea Franklin said the BTMI’s targeted sales and marketing approach across all markets was a “focus on building and maintaining airlift; reconnecting to its travel trade community and promoting a vibrant cultural calendar of events resulting in favourable forward bookings”.

She was “very optimistic” that the island would see positive growth in visitor arrivals in the 2025/2026 winter season and said her team engaged all stakeholders industrywide in a consultation last month to bring everyone up to date on planned improvements at the island’s two ports of entry, in anticipation of the increased traffic expected to be passing through both points.

More than 800 000 cruise passengers are expected and more than 400 cruise ship calls are scheduled for the Bridgetown Port during the 2025/2026 winter season.

Local cruise tourism specialist Martin Ince, the chief executive officer of Foster & Ince, anticipates a “strong season going right up to the second week of April”, based on the bookings. However, he said there would be “no cruise ships visiting Barbados during next year’s summer season”.

“In fact, there are no cruise ships coming south of Antigua during the summer. We have known this for a little while because, obviously, the cruise ship schedules are done far in advance,” Ince said.

In the past, Barbados received summer calls at the Bridgetown Port from the popular Carnival cruise line, which ceased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That southern Caribbean Carnival rotation has since been discontinued, with Carnival ships being repositioned to the northern Caribbean.

Royal Caribbean, which was doing a two-week rotation to the southern Caribbean during the 2025 summer season, has also been repositioned to the northern Caribbean.

However, though Ince said the loss was “disappointing, he said “the good thing is that the summer of 2027 will see a lot more traffic down our way”. He anticipated it would be “the largest number of cruise ships Barbados will be seeing in the summer in a very long time”.

The veteran cruising expert said Barbados was seeing “a fair share of new ships” visiting during the winter season. (GC)

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