From Barbados Tourism

Local tourism expanded by 15.1 per cent during Q1 2015, the highest performance in any comparative period in 25 years ~

BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS. May 27, 2015 – Barbados’ tourism sector broke a 25- year record during the first quarter of 2015 to reach 171,471 long stay arrivals.

BTMI Chairman, Alvin Jemmott, noted that there were record arrivals in each of the first three months of 2015 and extended his congratulations to all industry workers and partners for their steadfast efforts on behalf of the destination.

“This was a very strong winter season. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has predicted a five per cent increase in long stay arrivals for the region for the entire year and we believe our performance in this first quarter bodes well for us to comfortably exceed that target.”

Jemmott attributed this milestone performance to a number of factors including increased airlift capacity negotiated by the BTMI; healthy economic conditions in key markets, a commitment to developing new source markets, Barbados’ strong reputation among its global partners and the agency’s solid promotional strategies for reaching the travel trade, media and consumers in each market.

CEO, William Griffith, revealed that a comprehensive review effort has begun to ensure that the BTMI’s policies support their new mandate as a private entity.

“I am pleased to say that we have begun the process of updating a number of critical polices in the areas of human resources, marketing and finance in keeping with our commitment to increasing employee engagement and productivity; maximizing our return on marketing investment, and achieving greater levels of fiscal prudence.”

In line with these changes, a comprehensive marketing plan featuring traditional and digital marketing programmes has also been developed to guide the organization in resource allocation and monitoring of its various marketing programmes.

Griffith broke down the performance by market, which showed that arrivals from the UK, USA, Canada, and Caribbean and Latin American grew by 12.9 per cent, 27.7 per cent, 28.4 per cent and 10.6 per cent, respectively. Germany also grew by 23.6 per cent. These strong performances, including a 17.7 per cent rise in arrivals from ‘Other CARICOM’, overshadowed the 2.4 per cent decline in the Trinidad and Tobago market and the dip in arrivals from ‘Other Europe’ by 27.3 percent.

While the cruise sector declined by 6.1 per cent to 217,139 passengers, there was a welcomed increase in home porting, which sees ships purchases goods and services from local dairy, retail and other suppliers. There is also a trend being observed with smaller ships being replaced by larger vessels, some with the capacity to carry of over 4,000 passengers.

Griffith added that the island’s total airlift capacity for the May 1 – October 31, 2015 summer period was set to rise by 3.6 per cent, largely driven by additional flights and the use of larger aircraft by the island’s airline partners.

The BTMI CEO went on to project a successful summer period for the island, banking on the fact that “there is increasing alignment between our internal operations and structure, and our global strategic marketing efforts.”

Related:

BTMI presses forward with its digital marketing strategy

From Barbados Tourism

~ Barbados’ travel messages reach millions of social media users via mobile and desktop ~

BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS. May 27, 2015 – A global strategic plan for social media enabled Barbados to market the destination to more than 10 million online followers.

As at May 21, 2015 Barbados had in excess of 191,000 Facebook followers, 31,200 Twitter followers and 6,200 followers on Instagram.

“Social media is very dynamic and works well in demonstrating all that is authentic about vacationing in Barbados. It is also highly measurable and thus fits in with our commitment to establishing clear performance indicators on our marketing programmes.” said director marketing, Robert Chase.

A soon to be appointed digital marketing manager will see their role focused on content marketing strategies and systems to govern the BTMI’s content development, community management and digital analytics efforts.

During the first quarter of 2015, the BTMI ran a number of social media campaigns. The Brilliant Barbados digital ads resulted in the Visit Barbados Facebook page growing by 35 per cent to 191,000, while @Barbados on Twitter increased by seven per cent to 31,000. In total the combined Barbados social audience grew by over 57,000 over the eight-week campaign period. In addition there was a contest around Rihanna’s coverage in Cosmopolitan Magazine that generated 10 million impressions.

BTMI’s content marketing strategy effectively keep marketing costs down and fostered brand authenticity by curating royalty-free photos and videos from local photographers and videographers, as well as repurposing content developed at different stages in the life cycle of differing local events and marketing campaigns for social. Barbados’ social media activity also continues to promote upcoming events, special airfares and other programmes to increase audience engagement.

“We have yet to fully explore the power of new media advertising to reach targeted audiences with our travel offers. The extent to which we divide our marketing budget across traditional and new media channels will be an important factor in our digital marketing strategy over the short term.” Chase stated.

Chase added that the organization was engaged in the delivery of a new VisitBarbados.org website before the end of the current fiscal period.