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Review of Barbados’ Economy for Q1’2024

Central Bank of Barbados

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Despite challenges, Barbados’ economy grew in early 2024, further strengthening key economic aggregates like the current account balance and debt-to-GDP ratio. Amidst challenges such as elevated foreign interest rates, geopolitical tensions, higher freight costs, and adverse local weather conditions, the economy sustained its growth trajectory. Real GDP increased by 4.1 percent during the first quarter of 2024, fuelled by visitor arrivals that surpassed the industry’s 2019 peak along with broad-based growth across various sectors. This economic expansion contributed to achieving an external current account surplus and a further strengthening of financial sector’s resilience. Moreover, it helped to attain the 2023/24 fiscal year primary surplus target and further reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio – read more.

– Review of Barbados Economy – January-March 2024. (Source: Central Bank)
 
– Governors Presentation

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175 responses to “Review of Barbados’ Economy for Q1’2024”

  1. Pachamama Avatar
    Pachamama

    Regardless of circumstances these monkeys within the economic engine room can still come up with the same lofty sounding shiiite, regardless to the nature of externalities, present and coming.

  2. angela cox Avatar
    angela cox

    Real sounding shit and the gov knows how to roll lots of it out
    Tourism numbers tourism numbers
    Govt of Barbados out to be hanging head in shame rolling out tourism numbers to suffice the few who doesn’t know better and use tourism numbers as the gateway to 4.1 growth

  3. Miller Avatar
    Miller

    (Quote from the CB Guv’s report):
    “Despite challenges, Barbados’ economy grew in early 2024, further strengthening key economic aggregates like the current account balance and debt-to-GDP ratio. Amidst challenges such as elevated foreign interest rates, geopolitical tensions, higher freight costs, and adverse local weather conditions, the economy sustained its growth trajectory. Real GDP increased by 4.1 percent during the first quarter of 2024, fuelled by visitor arrivals that surpassed the industry’s 2019 peak along with broad-based growth across various sectors”.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    it’s really ‘heartening’ to hear that tourism continues to be the main engine of economic growth for the IMF-funded (loan-shark dependent) economy.

    But how can ‘we’ express confidence in this metric when the same Guv is unable to even provide an informed estimate of the tourist spend associated with those arrival figures which have even surpassed that industry’s pre-Covid figures?

    In other words, what is the ‘average’ amount spent by those ‘tourists’ arriving or visiting Barbados?

    If there is that ‘massive trickle-down’ effect (as the Guv and his bosses like to boast about) resulting in varied economic activity and consumer spending to boost GDP how come the Guv is unable to provide any ‘reliable estimates’ of these contributions to the local economy?

    Shouldn’t the hotels, registered accommodation units, restaurants and visitor attractions be in a position to help the Guv in providing some kind of informed analyses so Bajans can find out if tourism is really their main business?

    How come this continuous ‘economic growth’ over the last 2 years is not reflected in any marked reduction in that fudged figure of 80,000 plus in the country’s unemployment numbers ‘euphemistically’ described as the permanent “Voluntarily Idle”?

  4. John A Avatar
    John A

    Well after reading the article in Barbados Today it left me wondering about the figures, cause something aint adding up and nuff info missing. Left me show you what I mean.

    So the arrivals are up 14.8% in the first quarter but the hotels say their occupancy was only up by 4.1% percent. Airbnd reported an increase in occupancy for the same period of 7.1%. So where did all the people who made up this 14.8% stay? I drive around and I have not seen any tents pitched nor stuff like that. So what you saying, that the difference made up by Bajans coming home to stay with friends then? Cause if that is the case we targeting the wrong markets. So where all these people stayed is my question as they were not in the hotels or Airbnb.

    Next point is the Governor mentioned that net receipts from tourism for the first quarter of 2024 was $859.6 million, but failed to mention in the article what the 2023 quarter netted. So the 2024 receipts was up by 14.8% over 2023 too ?

    Finally if tourism was up by 14.8% and represents at least 50% of our GDP, how come we only ended up with growth of roughly 4% in total for the first quarter?

    Something here aint meking no sense. I hope they not counting people dogs and thing as arrivals too. Cause nuff of these rich peope like to travel with their pets! That is all fuh now.

  5. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Boy every report u just gotta find something to try to pull down the good news. Now u want say the CB / the governor cook the numbers ? Wow
    Does the occupancy rate go buy how many persons in a room or by how many rooms are occupied?

  6. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ 2

    Well all you got to do is get the answers to my questions and then we can discuss it. My point is the arrival figures are NOT supported by the data given in the report. Fullstop!

    Dont mind the messenger mind the concerns and seek the clarification and answers from the governor. There is much more in there that needs clarification but lets focus on the points raised for now.

  7. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Discuss what? The CB I assume would get the figures through the count from immigration and can cross reference with the airlines, BTMI etc.
    why question the arrival numbers and not the occupancy calculations ?

    Again – how is the occupancy of a hotel calculated? By the number of person s in the hotel or by the number of rooms in the hotel?

    If there are 5 person in 5 rooms in a 100 room hotel what is the occupancy?
    If there are 5 persons in the same does the occupancy x 5 -?
    u is the math guru

    Pertaining the tourist spend. U need the gov to spoon feed u? All The reports follow the same format. Try reading it once and u will learn where u can go back and find the info that u said he didn’t mentioned
    the 860 figure is not what’s in the printed reports – appendix 2

  8. David Avatar
    David

    The IMF has reported as well and local talking heads, Barbados’ data collection is in need of improvement. You will recall the central bank some years ago running its own unemployment numbers because it distrusted what was being generated by the BSS. At that time a BLP opposition was very critical.

  9. John A Avatar
    John A

    Lord give me strength.

    Get the spend for the first quarter of 2024 and compare it to 2023 and see if em up 14.8% or somewhere between 4% to 7%.

    Although you would come back and say 5 people share a snack box! Head count means nothing without associated spend. A full store and nothing in the register does not help your bank balance.

    I will await more data before doing back flips.

  10. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    Interesting.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-power-storm-rate-increase-1.7190771

  11. Enuff Avatar
    Enuff

    Y’all in a tizzy and dizzy. Wahlosssss, BU intelligentsia.

  12. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Murduhhhhh (Donna)

    Go back every report and see if the tourst spen does increase by the same percentage as the percentage of arrivals
    Murduhhhhh lord help he fuh true

  13. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    Are yo querying the volume of spend QoQ or Ave spend per tourist.

  14. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Which ever one he mean all it mean is that with the increase in tourist numbers u are getting a lot more “ cheaper” ones or Spender” staying shorter times

  15. David Avatar
    David

    In Q1’2023 1000 tourists visited with spend of 100k.

    In Q1’2024 1200 tourists visited with a spend of 130K.

    Quality reporting matters.

    A simple example. There was increased spend in 2024.

  16. Peanuts Avatar
    Peanuts

    1000 tourists visited with spend of 100k = $100 per tourist
    1200 tourists visited with a spend of 130K = $108.33 per tourist

    (BTMI) revealed the “Little Island, Big Barbados is Cheap and Cheerful” motto as part of a rebranding and marketing strategy

  17. John2 Avatar
    John2

    The number of arrivals and the number of money made is in the report

    Has nothing to do with the %s increase. the two are not tied to each other

  18. David Avatar
    David

    Excellent comment by Mr. lynch on talk show today. We are fooling ourselves with this 4.1 % real growth. All built on a sandy foundation.

  19. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Btw. The arrival number broken down by countries and years ( q think going back to 19 ) are in the report. Table 2 I think

    As for the question about how u get 14 % increase arrivals and only 4% growth? How come under the dems we used to have record increases in arrivals but yet ended up with no/ negative growth

    There is a email address to CB where u can ask questions ( I have used it once and got a reply )

  20. Statistics Avatar
    Statistics

    “As for the question about how u get 14 % increase arrivals and only 4% growth? ”

    Statistics are rough guides and not the full and total absolute picture

    for example lower and cheaper rates could result in a rise in numbers of arrivals

  21. David Avatar
    David

    The big takeaway from Mr. Lynch, we have not done enough to unleash the creativity and innovation to translate to an entrepreneurial culture to drive a diverse economy. We need to do more on the education side of the equation.

  22. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    Without politics and using common sence one would have a hard time showing us how occupancy only increased 4% in hotel and 7% on Airbandb yet arrivals grew by 14.8% that is my first point.

    Secondly if the spends was 856.9 million in the firat quarter of 2024 what did it compare to in 2023 and why was that comparison omitted in the article?

    Forget the background noise and lets get that information. Some can only see red so them would believe anything, but others are questioning the numbers too and the growth figure. The growth figure is questionable because if arrivals did grow by 14.8% and tourism represents in excess of 50% of GDP, what did the rest of the economy do that we only ended up with a 4.1%?

    If you can find the NET tourism figure for revenue for the first quarter of 2023 that would settle this diacussion. Well at least by people who reflect on numbers and not party colours. Lol

  23. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    If you listen to the VOB 12:30pm news today you will hear a leading economist giving flowers for growth in the economy BUT is concerned about the inflation and unemployment rate if memory serves.

    Update: should be debt service burden and not unemployment.

  24. dreamstarworld Avatar
    dreamstarworld

    BARBADOS YOU HAVE LEARNED WELL FROM YOUR SLAVE MASTERS

  25. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ David

    I heard some of Mr. Lynch’s comments and he raises genuine concerns.

    Depending on how you leaning anyone can cherry pick the numbers that makes your people look good.

    For example someone could say they own a $1million dollar house, but forget to mention they have an $800,000 mortgage. Did the person lie? Of course not they just did not mention their liabilty. Problem with numbers is they can be spun if you want to cherry pick, but not if they are view in their total.

  26. David Avatar
    David

    An economist said s currently showing up the Governor by explaining the difference between unemployment rate and employment rate.

  27. John A Avatar
    John A

    Thats what i mean by the numbers need to be clarified. Even reserves to me is a waste of time unless you speak to NET reserves. That is total reserves minus loans on said reserves. So reserves earned and not borrowed.

    I know we have been reporting all of this for years in this manner, but in todays world with such heavy borrowing this is very misleading. All these are things worthy of discussion. But some of the faithfuls bruise easily so change is unlikely. Arrival numbers for example are only useful on the political platform. What runs the country is total net spend. Hence give the relevant comparisons for revenue for comparative periods.

    So here is an example, a business sells a room for 100 usd on line through a travel entity. The entity takes 10% commission and the client then pays by credit card costing another 3%. The NET gain on that transaction is now down to $87 US.

  28. David Avatar
    David

    @John A

    The other point to be made is that money borrowed needs to be employed to generate growth in the economy. It is not enough to boast that we have it.

  29. Backooful Jack Avatar
    Backooful Jack

    @John A
    Lol, your basic math and stats skills are lacking.
    The economy will not grow by the same amount as growth in tourism, because tourism does not account for 100 percent of the economy. The last figure I heard was that tourism made up roughly 17.5 percent of Barbados’ economy. You would calculate tourism’s growth impact by multiplying tourisms’ percentage (0.175) by tourism’s growth rate (0.14). Given that other sectors make up 82.5 percent of the economy, you would do the same for the other sectors, then add and subtract each sector based in whether they grew or contracted in the quater. For example, in the report you will also see that International business registration also grew by 5 percent and there was also growth in construction. Take the percentage contribution of each secyor to GDP and then multiply by the sectors growth rate last quater. For example 0.175 × 0.14 = 0.0245 which is to say that tourism countributed 2.45 percent to economice growth. The other 1.6 percent came from other sectors like construction and International business.if you look around Barbados you will notice alot of construction taking place.

  30. John2 Avatar
    John2

    As usual. The only person that is bringing politic into the discussion is u. That’s how u operate when ur back against the wall fake ignorance , shout politics or change the goal post

    A hotel occupancy rate I’d determined by the average nomber of rooms that are occupied over the period and not by the number of people in the hotel
    Two hotel can have an occupancy rate of let say 90% ( same number of rooms).

    Hotel A has an average weekly turn over of 10% (let call it ten person to keep it simple) = that is ten room become vacant but another ten are take up on ( not I did not say 10 persons left and another person arrived = because a room can have any amount of visitors 1,2 , 3 4 etc

    Hotel B average weekly turn over rate is 50% So that 45 leaving and 45 arriving

    After 1 month more visitors would pass through hotel B than hotel A. But the occupancy rate for both hotels would still be the same 90%

    2

    Now if hotel A had one person per room and hotel had 3 per room and same turn over ratios for both at the end of month both would still have an occupancy rate of 90%

    A = 1x10x4 = 40 new visitors for the month
    B 3x45x4 =, 540 new visitors ( and the occupancy rate ain’t move one tick

    I know I know Occupancy rate is not constant Just trying that the occupancy rate is not tied to the amount of visitors to a hotel farless to the island

    3.

    Now if any of the two hotel had opened just one room and kept it occupied by visitors for that one month then the occupancy rate would increase.
    And it don’t ha to be the same room just the same number of room on everage

    For the Abnb. I don’t know how they calculate occupancy rate I would hazard a guess it has some to do with how many days the abnbs were occupied

  31. Backooful Jack Avatar
    Backooful Jack

    @John A The reason why occupancy numbers did not increase by the full 14% was given in the Review. It was also given by the Private sector run BHTA four weeks ago. Occuoany as a percentage of available rooms. What happened in the last year? Sam lords oppened (422 rooms) and a number of south and west coast properties reoppened and expaned and more rooms joined Airbnb. So the 4% increase in occupancy was as a percentage of alot more rooms.

  32. John2 Avatar
    John2

    https://walletminded.com/articles/how-to-calculate-occupancy-rate-in-an-airbnb/

    U can look up the one for hotels by urself

  33. John2 Avatar
    John2

    Backooful jack

    U red bag yardfowl :))

  34. John A Avatar
    John A

    Ok so for those that say toursim only is responsible for 17.5% of our GDP let me expand on that. As i said you can cherry pick figures.

    So the 17.5% speaks to the direct receipts from tourism as received via the central bank. It does not included total tourism activity on the island. What i would advise you do is look at the UNDP report that speaks to the caribbean by island and their tourism contribution. Barbados and i qoute directly from the report now.” BARBADOS IS ESTIMATED TO HAVE AN INFORMAL TOURISM SECTOR OF AROUND 30 TO 40 PERCENT OF GDP. The difference in figures is made up by the beach vendors, bars, hair braders cruises and all those who benefit from tourism that form the informal sector. From Banks beer to the cricket vedors, to Cuz the cutter captain by the Hilton. All those we look down at who collectively make up the valuable TOTAL tourism revenue base.

  35. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Backoo Jack

    So let me ask you a question. If tourism arrivals are up by 14.8% what increase in direct revenue as qouted by the Central Bank, Do you think that 2024 first quarter compared to 2023 should be up by. What you think is a reasonable increase?

    Secondly if you run a business and your counter shows that you had 14.8 percent more customers come in the store over a comparative period to last year, what percentage increase in sales you would say should be expected?

    As for occupancy did the hotels have people coming for shorter times? Did they come for longer stays? So all these are variables that could affect occupancy. what percentage was the increase of ACTIVE rooms in the first quarter 0f 2024 compared to 2023? If rooms increased by say 10% but occupancy increased by 4% then you got another problem there now. That would mean your ROI is in trouble.

    What does not have varibles though is the amount of revenue as a percentage of GDP collected by the central bank in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2023.

    That is what matters not all the rest of fluff in a report.

  36. David Avatar
    David

    Tourism is stated to contribute indirectly 40% plus to GDP.

    https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/8/1/16

  37. Backooful Jack Avatar
    Backooful Jack

    @David The reason why I agree with the need for education transformation is because of our inability to innovate and adopt new technology to tap into global supply and value chains. The current education system places heavy emphasis on rote learning and not enough emphasis on innovation, science and critical thinking skills. As much as we like to praise Singapore, they recognised this as a problem in their own system a decade ago and they made some changes.
    The main reasons why we are unable to find any other competitive advantages besides tourism and rum is because Barbados has high costs, its not connected geographically to any other countries which produce major products to which we can add value, and our education system does not place enough emphasis on science and innovation to attract more firms like Lenstec and make us a hub for research and development and the filing of patents and we have a small and already aging population. Contrary to what some people think Ireland is not just some tax haven like Luxembourg and Cayman but it is also a Research and development hub.
    The current govenment is working on a plan to connect Barbados to Guyana and Northern Brazil more closely.
    Education transformation is key. Search on instagram for Touchstarrobotics. It is not a well known company, but they are a group of bright young Barbadians who have created a robotics startup to find soulutions to real world problems.

    We need hundreds of those types of gradutes per year.
    The ministry of education’s decision to introduce coding and robotics early in the Secondary school ciriculum in 2021 was a good one. However, I believe we need to implement a full transformation of the system.

    As for the population issue, we need a system of managed migration to attract bright and innovative and skilled people from around the globe to live and work here. El Salvador is in the early stages of doing this and they are offering incentives for scientists, engineers and othe professionals to come.
    Well are already doing it in construction with Colombians and Jamaican workong here, we need to broaden it to areas needed for economic diversification.

  38. The devil is in the details Avatar
    The devil is in the details

    “What does not have varibles though is the amount of revenue as a percentage of GDP collected by the central bank in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2023.”

    Big numbers have to be drilled down and looked into for every element that it is comprised of as any IT boffin would say. KPIs and all that and a bag of chips.

    “The devil is in the details” is an idiom alluding to a catch or mysterious element hidden in the details; it indicates that “something may seem simple, but in fact the details are complicated and likely to cause problems”. It comes from the earlier phrase “God is in the details”, expressing the idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly; that is, details are important.

  39. David Avatar
    David

    @backooful

    We have a problem we can agree with lack of skills to propel the country forward. Our tired economic model is about to stall. It is being kept on life by borrowing.

  40. Backooful Jack Avatar
    Backooful Jack

    @David I think there is a misunderstanding here. 40% is tourism’s total estimated economic impact. This includes tourism’s impact on retail and distribution, professional services etc. But those sectors are already mentioned under their own heading when gdp is calculated. Therefore tourism’s direct contribution of 17.5 percent is used to avoid double counting and overstating GDP, That is why in the Central bank’s report, you would see the bank state that tourism’s strong performance had a knock on effect on other sectors. then go on to list the growth in the other sectors independently to avoid double counting.

  41. Backooful Jack Avatar
    Backooful Jack

    @David, I wouldn’t say about to stall. What I would say is that we will most likely see a slow down in GDP growth because of a lack of innovation and technological adaptation. This ia despite thw fact that the recent budget saw a number of incentives for innovation and technology. There is even a new 50 % tax credit for digitisation. You can imagine a government having to beg some companies to go digital to improve efficiency? That is something that sgould be in their own best interest. agree with Professor Robinson that government has done well in managing the fiscal and that the econony has held up (better than some expected) in the short term.
    But as someone who’s most recent economic predictions from the last three years have come to past, mark nh words. The biggest obstacles to Barbados acheiving an average of over 3% GDP growth over the next 20 years will be fear of technological change, fear of radical change in the education system and Xenophobia.

  42. John A Avatar
    John A

    Look lets be fair to the central bank and other reporting entities. The format that they use is well over 40 years old. It served us well in the 80s and 90s but now so much has changed. We have large loan balances in our reserves and even our tourism sector has changed ownership in many cases.

    We would die and never know what percentage of the foreign owned hotels total earnings are remitted to us. The days of the family run hotels like Paradise and many others has gone. Truth is if you look around in January you can see ALL small and big benefitting from tourism. The problem is we dont have the data to accurately quantify the TOTAL value of our tourism sector. Hence it is referred to as the informal sector. Peraonally I believe from what i know that it could even be over 50%. Check companies like Banks and Stanfield Scot and ask them what the winter season means to their total annual sales. You will jumps if you knew the numbers trust me.

  43. John2 Avatar
    John2

    A

    I told u yesterday where to find the info about the tourist spend / earning from tourism for the periods u keep asking about . The number you quoting is wrong as from the printed report. However the % increase from my calculation seem to be in the 14% are . Now this I would question but with understanding that there is no true formula to determine tourism spend and they probably used the assumed assumed spend from last year and applied it to the this year 14% increase in arrivals

  44. beach bum money Avatar
    beach bum money

    $100 per tourist is beach bum money

  45. John A Avatar
    John A

    @ Jack 7.06pm

    The informal tourism sector does not include distribution etc as they are captured under their own catagory. The 17% approx you claimed initially in your 4.16pm post was ALL that tourism generates to GDP, speaks ONLY to the tourism dollars that pass through the central bank. The summary you drew in that post was therefore all nonesense after that point. There is no confusion here, other than anyone who googled the information would see that toursim ACCORDING TO CENTRAL BANK RECEIPTS only accounted to 17% of GDP and then realised it did not include TOTAL tourism revenue.

    The informal sector speaks to those DIRECTLY involved in tourism whose revenue does NOT pass through the central bank.This would include watersports guys, taxis, tours and a host of other related services too much to mention here. To state that tourism is only listed at 17% because their other contributions are picked up in other sectors is incorrect. The other sectors speak to sales from their activities and while tourist related purchases may be in there, those sales are captured under their perspective catagory. The imformal sector is so called because there is no way currently of capturing their contribution. Hence places like the UNDP speak to estimating it around 40% of GDP. At no time do any organisations state that toursim only generates 17% of GDP because the rest of their performace is in retail and distribution figures etc. So in other words after the formal sector has reported their revenue to the central bank the informal tourism sector then contributes roughly 40% of GDP. Hope that is clear to all.

    So yes there is no confusion here just misrepresentation by some for what ever reason they deem necessary. Anyhow the floor is yours to do with as you deem fit as that is my final comment on this topic.

  46. angela cox Avatar
    angela cox

    Hard to put any trust in what comes out of govt officials mouth those that monitors the economy
    The PM once told barbadians that the IMF loans were very low when compared to borrowing from other financial institutions
    A lie which now has been fully exposed and being shattered by the numerous fees and surcharges upon which the IMF made its agreement when the govt of Barbados made haste in its borrowing plans from the IMf
    Not one but now twice has this lie been exposed whereby the interest rate has been exposed as variable
    Question of the day
    Why didn’t the PM in one of her many PR speeches gave such details to the people
    The PM has also touted transparency as good will for the people
    So far a lack of transparency has become a major failure for this govt

  47. David Avatar
    David

    @ac

    Is it a case of the prime minister not saying ONLY? Did the media and an educated and ‘financially savvy’ citizenry ask the right questions? Were the terms and conditions of the loan hidden?

  48. The OG Avatar
    The OG

    I hope the average Bajan is much smarter than I am as this economy stuff is way above my head.

    The truth is that I was trying to follow the discussion, but then J2 started to throw round numbers as if they were ‘small change’ (pennies and cents)

    I gave up. I am not listening to a man that got his economic degree from Lorenzo with ‘not enuff’ as a lead instructor.

    Good morning to beautiful Barbadod

  49. synonyms of obvious Avatar
    synonyms of obvious

    Barbados Credit Rating was poor and IMF was the go to lender when no one else would lend money that was needed.

    Sometimes people’s memories and level of thinking are missing.

    Some common synonyms of obvious are apparent, clear, distinct, evident, manifest, patent, and plain. While all these words mean “readily perceived or apprehended,” obvious implies such ease in discovering that it often suggests conspicuousness or little need for perspicacity in the observer.

  50. angela cox Avatar
    angela cox

    @ David
    Isn’t the PM the Ministerof Finance would not her role be that of corresponding information to the public along with the media
    How can questions be asked if nothing is correspond
    The PM would have known everything in the agreement
    However my thinking being she didn’t want the public or the media to become aware of such findings

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