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Do You Remember All Those Promises That Intra Caribbean Airfares Would Come Down?

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Well! What has happened?

Here we are almost at the end of 2007 and not only have intra Caribbean airfares climbed to the highest ever recorded, but travel within the region has fallen dramatically by an estimated 30 per cent. LIAT’s response is to cancel a number of flights, rather than making it more affordable to travel, and one is left to ponder exactly what benefits the ordinary Caribbean taxpayer has reaped from the millions of dollars in subsidies the airline has received. According to the Barbados Statistical Service, we lost a total of 11,928 Trinidad and Tobago and other CariCom long stay visitors during the first six months of 2007 alone.

Up until the merger of LIAT and Caribbean Star, the Caribbean represented Barbados’s third largest market for long stay visitors. Not only did Intra Caribbean travel supply a lifeline for many of our smaller hotels but even more important that that, it filled rooms during the critical summer months, when we most needed the business. A loss of nearly 12,000 visitors based on average stay and spend represents nearly $30 million in tourism earnings. And what we have to take into account is that this happened during a period that we were hosting the Cricket World Cup when additional intra regional traffic was generated.

What if anything has been the net benefits to the travelling public from the merger?

It is difficult to identify any!
Historically highest airfares!
Reduced traveller’s choice!
A grossly overstaffed airline operating from an illogical base!

Is this really the legacy benefit we were looking for?

Adrian Loveridge

10 November 2007

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6 responses to “Do You Remember All Those Promises That Intra Caribbean Airfares Would Come Down?”

  1. Paper tiger Avatar
    Paper tiger

    Lynch= Lies

  2. » Bajan Underground Reports Yet Another Assault on the Caribbean Taxpayers and the Barbados Tourist Industry Keltruth Corp.: News Blog of Keltruth Corp. – Miami, Florida, USA.

    […] Bajan Underground Reports Yet Another Assault on the Caribbean Taxpayers and the Barbados Tourist Industry Posted in November 10th, 2007 by admin in Entertainment & Travel, Government, Politics and Development, West Indies News, Barbados Barbados Underground guest reporter Adrian Loveridge has investigated the LIAT subsidy, and the net effect appears to be negative. After Caribbean taxpayers financed whopping subsidies, airfares have not decreased – they have gone up instead. Moreover, Caribbean tourist flights into Barbados have been reduced, seriously impacting the Barbadian tourist industry. Read the BU article here. […]

  3. Psychiatric Hospital Avatar
    Psychiatric Hospital

    Adrian Loveridge,

    How is the syphilis treatment going?

    Edited….David

  4. No Name Avatar
    No Name

    Psychiatric Hospital

    You have the right to print anything you want to print. But let me ask you this. And with all dur respect!

    When you re-read the above venom you just wrote about a man and his wife for really no other reason than public embarassment. May I ask these questions?

    How do you sleep at night? Do you have a wife, girlfriend or fiance? How would you like to have someone maliciously and cruelly verbally attack them for no good reason as you have done here? What about children do you have them? Is this an example you want to set for them and other youth reading this blog?

    People say it is better to ignore your ilk but I take another position. I think that people like you are very troubled and you need to seek help.

    You cannot destroy credible and decent people with this vulgar and unkind rhetoric.

    In the event you lack the education or intelligence to participate in dialogue—– ANY dialogue, believe me you would be well advised to keep silent.

    I hope you read the recent discussions of Barbadian men and violence against women. What you have displayed here this morning is a typical profile of a woman abuser! Get help my friend because you badlu need it!

  5. Adrian Loveridge Avatar
    Adrian Loveridge

    Submitted to be published but got lost in the mail, sorry Adrian L. We see that BFP published so all was not lost 🙂

    ‘St. Lucia is going head to head with Barbados and I can see the island getting ahead’

    These comments were made by Glen Beache, the Minister of Tourism for St. Vincent and the Grenadines in St. Lucia recently, whilst addressing the media with his St. Lucia counterpart, Senator Allen Chastenet.

    Under a heading of ‘St. Vincent and St. Lucia team up for tourism promotion’ carried in the Wednesday 5th December 2007, edition of the Star newspaper, Minister Beache, went on to lament the continuing fall in intra Caribbean travel, citing rising airfares as a large contributor to the decline in regional travelers.

    ‘I agreed that airfares needed to go up’ he said. The extent to which they’ve gone up, I don’t agree with’.

    Recently released long stay arrivals from the Barbados Statistical Service, show for the first ten months of 2007 a dramatic decline of 19 per cent visiting Barbados in terms of the regional islands combined.
    The exception was Trinidad and Tobago which showed a drop of 12.2 per cent.

    Tourism policymakers may have not as yet estimated the substantial negative economic effective this has had on the accommodation and ancillary sectors.
    While most Caribbean destinations enjoy a fairly predictable
    busy winter season, the reality is that a bumper four month peak season does not pay the bills of operating 12 months a year.

    Especially affected is the small hotel sector, which largely benefits from Caribbean people traveling in the eight long summer months.

    But just about every other component element that makes up the overall tourism product suffers as well.

    Taxi drivers, car rental agencies, restaurants activities and attractions, shopping experiences and so on!

    While, LIAT may be in a better financial state and once again enjoying a virtual monopoly, I really wonder if those political leaders guiding our destiny have added up the true overall cost to their nation’s economies in terms of lost tourism earnings.

    Adrian Loveridge
    5th December 2007

  6. forever liat customer Avatar
    forever liat customer

    I believe David has a personal problem with LIAT, Chastenet from St Lucia hates LIAT its a fact. Caribbean Governments have cheated LIAT, they make the decisions not the Airline. The Airline workers are just puppets responding to their bidding . Due to political circumstances these guys hide behind the Airline creating policies.

    The caribbean have the decision to increase the Airline’s fleet and adding more sophisticated Aircraft for long haul flights.

    I still love my LIAT, without them, I wont be able to fly from Dominica, American Eagle don’t even cut it.

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