Can anyone give an update on what was promised as outlined in the article below?

Changes at BTA3/18/2009By Shawn CumberbatchAFTER earning a record $2.4 billion from tourism last year, Government is giving the sector an institutional shake-up in the midst of a 7.7 decline in long-stay visitor arrivals.
The Barbados Tourism Authority’s (BTA) board has been trimmed by seven and separate tourism marketing and product development companies are being created as part of a major restructuring exercise, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy announced yesterday.
http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=local&NewsID=2529

@ac
Please tell us what the gentleman’s research reveals as it relates to Barbados and St.Lucia.

@ millertheanunnaki |
When you look at the vagrants and characters in Bridgetown, you must admit that Bridgetown itself appears to be the biggest Parrow in town. Dirty, smelly, unkempt, seemingly broke , full of garbage , p&s in every alley way, and we want to ask the WH people to include Scotland District?.
All the talk we are having reference wooing the tourist back to Barbados, no one, hotelier,tourism guru, minister or even the ordinary Barbadians do not seem to associate a clean environment high on the expectation of visitors.
I’ll never forget when I first came back here and was walking along the Princess Alice Highway, outside of the Bridgetown Port to a hear a visiting Royal Navy Tar, remarked, ” gee mucker, there is more shit on the pavement than on the road” Has any thing changed?

@ ac
It is not about the total numbers stupid!!!! Barbados always recorded more stay over visitors than St. Lucia. It is about performance: improvement vs decline that is what those + and – figures above refer to. Benchmarking!!!!

Loveridge cannot not manage a 10 room property furthermore manage an argument on tourism!

The guy has an over inflated ego and over inflated sense of importance I wonder why he never had the mouth or tongue to say anything when the BLP had him bent over a barrel with Barney Lynch coming at him from behind.

The guy is a solo act incapable of working with or in conjunction with anyone he is not a team player and thereby not one that can work within any arrangement to a positive result he is about Loveridge and Loveridge alone.

No wonder David Rice never took him as a serious tourism partner and fought to have him removed from the BTA board.

Drunk Arthur,

It really amazes me exactly how much misinformation is spread on this blog.
Myself and eight other BTA Diretors had their positions revoked in March 2009.
David Rice was appointed BTA President/CEO on 4 May 2009, so he wasn’t even in the picture during the revokations.

It perhaps would add to your credibility if you told the truth once in a while!

@Adrian

A little advice, ignore those who have blind political motives. It is the silly season.

The issue here is simple. Has Barbados experienced growth in the tourism sector. How do we define growth show help the conversation. Growth for the sake fo this conversation let us define as any year where there was year over year growth in long stay arrivals for BARBADOS. Then do similarly for St. Lucia to explore Adrian’s position.

Barbados earned the largest intake of Foreign dollars in the year 2008 than any other year since records have been kept and the largest number of arrivals with CWC in 2007 now we did not have matching records for earnings to match the record year for arrivals, then again Barbados again came very close to setting a new arrival record in the year 2011 it fell short of the 2007figures by merely a couple hundred.

I find Loveridge’s, writing self serving and demeaning, as he tries to suggest that it is he is the only one who knows the answers to every matter named tourism, I say to the guy with your level of knowledge and expertise you should be running a full hotel 500 days a year and surely your talents are wasted on this rock you are more suited to be the tourism president of Alaska or the South Pole tourist board.

What manner of man could be so ignorant to suggest poor performance by the sector when it sets two new records one for the largest number of arrivals ever, the other for the largest intake of Foreign Exchange ever ij the history of Barbados being a tourist destination and then to follow up in 2011 to have come within a few hundred persons of resetting the figure for the record number of arrivals to this island ever?

Armed with this knowledge Loveridge what foolish nonsense are you trying to hatch here?

If you are incapable of running a 10 room hotel and getting people to stay there maybe it has more to do with the management and the quality of the accommodation of your property than the BTA.

Also maybe if you spent more time marketing your property that writing utter crap as you have done so often your property would now not be shut down. I

David,

I will try but there are posters that are deliberately trying to mislead those that who have a genuine interest.
David Rice was based in San Diego prior to his appointment and working for Welk Resorts. Prior to the appointment he had no influence on the Board.
Finally CWC 2007 , despite its cost, increased long stay visitor arrivals by just 44 persons in the first FOUR months of that year. ‘We’ our children and grandchildren will be repaying the cost for decades including the $30 million plus arrangement fees and interest to charter Carnival Destiny.

There he goes again it is only he that has a genuine interest in tourism how self serving and self opinionated does this man get ?

Did 2007 yield the largest number of arrivals ever?

Did 2008 not set new revenue earnings from tourism for the islands?

Did 2011 not come extremely close to resetting an arrival record ?

I think the answer to each of the above is a loud yes therefore Loveridge you claim is utter rubbish and self opionated and self serving and baseless we have no issue with opinions or suggestions but at least let them be with some degree of mature and honest sense.

WOW!

Very narrow minded whom ever you maybe posting above, the pomotion gives exposure to our Chefs from our hotels it gives exposure to our musical talent and is an event that we were invited to be part of not a promotion put on by the BTA.
All it has done is expose our Craft, Arts, foods and our Chefs and our Musical talents young and old to those in the vast Brazil and South America, I would have thought you BLP people would be glads would be happy to see Barbados being showcased in far sprung places guess that is beyound you.

I hope bloggers understand that the US has a GDP of 16 Trillion or so. Brazil, China, India and Russia have GDPs much less than that but because they were growing and 6 and 7 % while the US was at 0.5 to 1% It was universally acknowledged that the BRICs were outperforming the US.

I’ll explain it differently. I have a million dollars I accumulated over 10 years and this year I earned $10,000 on it from investments. You have $250,00 you have accumulated over 10 years and this year you earn $125,000 on it. I have more than you. Any rational person would want to be me but it is indisputable that for this year you have outperformed me since your growth rate is 50% while mine is 1%. Your flow is greter than mine for this year and if that trend continues your stock will be greater than mine at some point in time.

It is even more alarming in tourism statistics because the hard fact of the matter is that some of your growth comes at the expense of mine.

It really isn’t rocket science. What can be contested is why they are enjoying higher growth rates. Are they using subsidies?
Do they offer better value for money? Better service? Is it because we are a mature market?
After determining that then one can take steps to recoup some of that lost ground.
I have no opinion on whether tourism is being managed or mismanaged. I just know that like in so many areas of Barbadian life there are simple low cost things that we can do better to make life here better.

I understand where Adrian Loveridge is coming from. Raw numbers do not really tell us anything.

Look at it this way: St. Lucia has 350 hotel rooms and receive 300 stay overs; Barbados has 1000 hotel rooms and receive 600 stay overs – is there growth,decline or stability over the previous season?

This is simplistic, but it may clear up some of the misunderstanding. St. Lucia, new to the tourism market does not have nearly as many hotels, guest houses, condos, etc. as Barbados. Yet, based on what they have are doing very well indeed. Besides, they have beaches, mountains, rivers, forests, etc. What does Barbados have – beaches and beach boys.

Even I know that Barbados is in decline. Hotels have closed and others have let go staff, still others are on short weeks or rotation of staff. The industry is in the doldrums.

@Pat

Perhaps the best way to resolve this debate is for readers to view the diagram on page 1 of the Central Bank Review of the Economy for the first 9 months of 2012.

http://www.centralbank.org.bb/WEBCBB.nsf/(hpPublications)/E6FA29CDCB2E3D9104257AA700603F25/$FILE/PR%20Sep%202012%20v6.0.pdf

“Barbados recieves a quarter million more long stay visitors than ST. Lucia every year no matter how Adrian and the BLP pimps who praying for Barbados to collapse slice or dice it quarter million works
out to $400 million in spend in BIM.”

This is the most assinine statement uttered here on this blog! How can anyone count into the future? The tourist Industry is on its last legs FOOLBERT! With the economic problems in our major market the UK, rest of Europe and the USA, the lack of airlift, the lack of rooms due to hotel closures you have the GALL to come here and spout this nonsense. No wonder our education system is failing this country you have convinced me of that!

But WTMC I seeing?

Finally CWC 2007 , despite its cost, increased long stay visitor arrivals by just 44 persons in the first FOUR months of that year. ‘We’ our children and grandchildren will be repaying the cost for decades including the $30 million plus arrangement fees and interest to charter Carnival Destiny.

Rate ThisFinally CWC 2007 , despite its cost, increased long stay visitor arrivals by just 44 persons in the first FOUR months of that year. ‘We’ our children and grandchildren will be repaying the cost for decades including the $30 million plus arrangement fees and interest to charter Carnival Destiny.

Rate ThisFinally CWC 2007 , despite its cost, increased long stay visitor arrivals by just 44 persons in the first FOUR months of that year. ‘We’ our children and grandchildren will be repaying the cost for decades including the $30 million plus arrangement fees and interest to charter Carnival Destiny.

how pathetic and condescending- are you invoking the sins of a previous administration discarded by the electorate over four years ago to deflate the vicious criticismand demonisation ths DLP apologists are heaping upon your head – take your licks like a man ; do not ressurrect the dead

adrien your submision always seem to be so negatively based and i believe they give a onesided view and not a true picture in comparison to ST. lucias . St, lucia is growing in numbers can’t dispute that and barbados has shown a decline . that we can agree on but your submission always seem to give the impression that ST, lucia has outperformed Barbados when it comes to the number of vistors and have surpassed Barbados and that is not True try putting things in their true context could possibly avoid conflict of interest on any ones part.

““Barbados recieves a quarter million more long stay visitors than ST. Lucia every year”

Croaking….you are the JACKASS jus read what you have just stated! So which time frame are you referring to? The past, the present or the future? “Every year” means that this will happen this year, next year and the year after IDIOT! Whew ! Your writing skills are piss poor! FOOLBERT!

Yes Adrian is entitled to his opinion and don’t you forget it!

Whether he comes over as disgruntled is irrelevant. The simple point is that the numbers/data support Adrian’s point, our tourism has been lagging counties in our peer group.

When he asked for the Master Plan is he disgruntled?

When he asked about why we have closed our Office in the mid West is he disgruntled?

When he asked for the government and the MoT to speak to the people is he being disgruntled?

When he asked about airlift and the need to sustain airlift is he being disgruntled?

When he asked for greater allocation to small/intimate Hotels is he being disgruntled?

When he asked about the finalization of the split of the BTA Board to bring focus on product and marketing is he being disgruntled?

When asked why we don’t have independent tourism players involved in managing the BTA instead of political hacks is he being disgruntled?

A people get what they deserved.

So David perhaps you can explain why Adrian would expect our management of tourism to be any different from EVERYTHING ELSE that we have managed to mess up?
….of course you have already answered by reference to the fact that we get what we DESERVE.

Bushie’s point therefore is that the REAL solution is to make the kind of changes needed so that we can DESERVE BETTER…..for tourism management, justice, governance, sports, health, education, agriculture, water management, energy, law and order, culture, public transport, enfranchisement, …….and all of the other areas of idiocy that we have created over the past three decades or so.

Perhaps THAT is the key critical topic to be discusse…..why we are deserving of such CRAP.

@Bush Tea

In much the same way no US President who wins the White House based on its current ‘flawed’ system ie. lose the popular vote but win in the Electoral College the same for Barbados. Those who can make the change feed off the flawed system. The people are sheep.