Bridgetown.
Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy has pledged to be more creative indentifying programmes to counter the challenges facing the tourism sector.
Speaking at a church service held at the United Church of America Mount Olive to mark the start of Tourism Week, Sealy said the decline in visitors arrivals out of some of the source markets and the high cost associated with travel are among the major challenges facing the industry.
"We have been going through a challenging period and in the face of those challenges, we have to be very creative in terms of our approach to the particular situations", Sealy said.
"Tourism is critical to the overall economic well being of the country. We at the ministry, aware of the need to do things differently by providing the strategic leadership, are looking at a number of initinatives that will strengthen this industry going forward", the Minister said.
Despite these challenges, Sealy told the congreation that it is not all doom and gloom for the industry.
"I think that is a lot we can draw encouragement from, because while we have seen some dips and declines, we have seen some pretty impressive increases in the Canadian and Caribbean performance as we seek to do things differently", he added.
He noted that there a number of activities that are intended to improve the experience of visitors to the island.
"We are looking at new niches and trying to take sports tourism to another level; we are trying to develop the cunlinary tourism niche, there is a lot happening on behalf of Barbados to ensure that we can sustain this industry', Sealy said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.