Submitted by Philip Skeete

I would like to make a correction to some misleading information which Mr. Adrian Loveridge has posted in his blog with reference to tourist arrivals in Barbados and St. Lucia. By his argument, St. Lucia has done 40 times better than Barbados for the four years 2008 to 2011. I wonder if he realizes that they have done infinity times better than the Bahamas using his poor logic. How on earth can these people using such logic, convince any government to blindly throw money into their businesses? The Bahamas attracted 5,503,733 stay-over tourists, Barbados 2,185955 stay-over tourists and St. Lucia 1,192,102 stay-over tourists during the same period 2008-2011.  Adding up positive growth, deducting negative growth and concluding that one country does better than the other is madness.  St. Lucia should be the leading destination in the Caribbean according to Mr. Loveridge’s illogic.

The member countries of the CTO outperforming Barbados in stay-over tourists 2008-2011 are Aruba, Bahamas, Cancun, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands.

The full membership is as follows :- Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cancun Cayman Islands Cozumel , Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Trinidad, US Virgin Islands.

Here are some figures quoting from CTO Statistics.

• Bahamas 1 462 404 tourist ( stay over) arrivals in 2008 i.e -4.3 % growth from the previous year
• Barbados 567667 tourist (stay over) arrivals in 2008 i.e – 0.9 % growth from the previous year
• St. Lucia 295,761 tourist (stay over ) arrivals in 2008 i.e + 2.9 % growth from the previous year
• Bahamas 1,327,005 tourist ( stay over) arrivals in 2009 i.e _9.3 % growth from the previous year
• Barbados 518,564 tourist ( stay over) arrivals in 2009 i.e -8.7 % growth from the previous year
• St. Lucia 278,000 tourist ( stay over) arrivals in 2009 i.e -5.8 % growth from the previous year
• Bahamas 1,370,135 tourist (stay over) arrivals in 2010 i.e + 3.3 % growth from the previous year
• Barbados 532,000 tourist (stay over ) arrivals in 2010 i.e +2.6 % growth from the previous year
• St. Lucia 305,937 tourist (stay over) arrivals in 2010 i.e +9.9 % growth from the previous year
• Bahamas 1,344,189 tourist (stay over ) arrivals in 2011 i.e _1.9 % growth from the previous year
• Barbados 567,724 tourist (stay over) arrivals in 2011 i.e +6.7 % growth from the previous year
• St. Lucia 312,404 tourist (stay over) arrivals in 2011 i.e + 2.1 % growth from the previous year

Further to the above, it was subsequently observed that in 2009 Guyana attracted 141,053 stay-over  tourists i.e a growth of 6 % over the previous year, whereas the Dominican Republic attracted 3,992,303 tourists of the same category with a growth of 0.3 % over the previous year. According to Mr. Loveridge’s argument, Guyana did 20 times better than the Dominican Republic in 2009. I hope that no other member of the BHA produces such illogic to any Tourism Minister of  any Government now or in the future. If Mr. Loveridge is their standard bearer, God Help tourism in Barbados.