Barbados’ tourism sector has begun to show signs of growth. In 2014 long stay visitor arrivals increased for the first time in two years by 2.2 percent to 519,638 visitors, compared to the previous year.

Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), Alvin Jemmott, explained that while there was still some way to go to restore all of the market share lost during the past few years, it was encouraging news for the destination.

“This is admirable considering that our destination is one of the more mature holiday spots in the region, with a very high repeat visitor rate. It also comes against the background that there was a projection of a four per cent decline in arrivals for the year back in December 2013.

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Tourism is still the best hope for Barbados’ economic recovery, as it generates some 12 percent of the island’s foreign exchange earnings, which are estimated at $4 billion. There was also a record-breaking number of arrivals in December 2014 when Barbados welcomed 56,132 long stay visitors, the highest on record in any given month since the April 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup.

The island welcomed 395 cruise ships last year, an increase of 21 vessels when compared to 2013.

There were 1,164 more cruise stay visitors than in the previous year, with the majority choosing to stay 7-10 days. Building on the successful growth of the previous year, Barbados’ tourism arrivals are projected to increase by five percent in 2015. Also for the year the island has recorded strong levels of visitor arrivals with preliminary figures showing January 2015 being the highest on record for the past 15 years with 56,132 arrivals.

The USA grew by 14 percent to 10,810, the highest on record since 2010.

Visit Barbados, www.visitbarbados.org