Once a jewel in the British Crown, Barbados was formerly a playground of the rich and famous because of the tremendous wealth that was generated by its sugar cane plantations. As a legacy of those times, the island continues to attract high-end tourism, yet Barbados also offers numerous opportunities for meaningful vacations on a more affordable budget. Tourism Minister Kerrie Symmonds discusses the importance of the sector to the national economy, his plans to attract visitors year-round through cultural events, and upcoming investment opportunities in environmentally sustainable projects

What are the key elements that define the tourism industry in Barbados?

The one key figure that best illustrates the importance of tourism is its contribution to the national GDP. If you consider both direct and indirect contributions, we would arguably be reliant on tourism for about 45% of GDP, which is quite substantial. By direct I mean arrivals and actual physical performance in terms of long stays and cruise ship tourism, and by indirectly I mean investment in the sector, real estate and so on. Tourism is the main revenue stream for the country, and a lot of businesses develop a spin-off or an ancillary related benefit; in the cruise sector, for example, we do considerable business as a home-porting destination. A lot of people from Europe, and England in particular, fly down here during wintertime to take a cruise that begins and ends in Barbados. The spin-off of that has been a new revenue stream as people spend some extra time at a hotel, guesthouse or villa either before or after the cruise. And there is another spin-off of that, because while they stay, they are moving around the island. Every so often we see new trends emerging, and these continue to expand the commercial activity related to Barbados.

How does Barbados’ good connectivity help the tourism industry?

Outside of Puerto Rico we are the only destination that does home-porting in the region, so we are a major regional hub. As for flights, we are in a good place because we have direct connections to continental Europe, and we recently concluded a new link with Lufthansa. There are as many as three daily direct flights to the UK, with both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. As for the US, there are several gateways that we fly to directly: Miami, Boston, New Jersey, New York and more. And we also cover Canada and Latin America.

You recently invested in upgrades for Grantley Adams International Airport. What other improvements are you planning?

I became tourism minister about 20 months ago, and at that point arriving at the airport then was not as smooth an experience as it is today. We made a very conscious decision that the first impression must count: when you come into the arrivals hall you are offered drinks and refreshments, and the e-gate entry is a new feature to try to make things as speedy as possible. The airport was built around 1976 and at peak capacity it can probably accommodate about 1,500 people in the terminal, and that is also true of departures. Given the magnitude of growth in arrivals we needed to re-imagine the space, and part of what we’ve done is to make a serious assessment of the cost of a better terminal to comfortably accommodate the present volume of traffic and leave room for further growth over the next 15 to 20 years. We’ve concluded that we need at least $150 million in investment.

Where will you seek the funds for this overhaul?

If the government does it, it tends to be a cumbersome process, and the current approach to the operation of the airport is that of a state-owned enterprise. You can see this in things like the fact that we are not as nimble or commercially minded as other airports: our non-aeronautical revenue, such as from advertising space, is still very low. There is no shopping mall experience here as there is in many international airports, either. We want to change all that. We want something to reflect the tropical setting where we are, and to be equally very commercial in its orientation. Our route is a public tender that will make a global request for proposals; once we have gone through the process and identified the investor, the financial process will hopefully be completed by February of next year. At that point we will hand over the license to operate, expand and improve the airport, and to run it for about 30 years so this investor can get a return. After this period it will revert to the state, and the new government will decide whether to continue with this model. Most world airports are moving in that direction.

Barbados offers a mix of luxury and affordable options. What unique experience are you trying to create on the island?

It is important to set Barbados apart from most of the other island experiences available in other parts of the world. We are very fortunate because for a long time we were the playground of the rich and famous of Great Britain, and we were the jewel in the British Crown because of the tremendous wealth that was generated by the sugar cane plantations back in the 1600s and 1700s. So this became the center of British commercial wealth making, and long after that period had passed, there remained an interest in Barbados among British high society, and this interest spread slowly across Europe and North America, where Barbados was viewed as a high-end destination, almost iconic in nature. But the flip side of the coin is that we are a very small island, and there are lots of experiences that are very affordable.

What are some of these affordable experiences?

We have consciously ring-fenced a number of small budget hotels which are indigenous, not run by international brands, and we call them “the intimate hotels of Barbados” because that is exactly what they are: they range from 15 to 70 rooms at the most, and statistics show that these establishments actually get the larger amount of repeat visitors as well as the largest amount of long-stay visitors. And I sense that the reason why this happens is because a lot of those people like the idea of going away on a vacation and meeting the owner of the hotel; often you get invited to the owner’s house and you spend a little bit of time living like a Bajan. Everyone knows your name, and when you return they remember you and they also remember your favorite drink. It is a very personal type of experience, and I think that this is the magic of Barbados: it appeals both to the high-end and to the more budget-conscious in a very personal way. Increasingly in this world, we travel and visit a destination but don’t really make any friends or any human connections, but people feel that they can let their guard down in Barbados, and that’s really important.

What can visitors expect when they come to Barbados?

There are three core brand elements to Barbados that we try to maintain. The first is safety. Of course there will be incidents from time to time, but we remain arguably one of the safest destinations in the hemisphere. People can check into their hotels and then go for a walk without any consideration for security: you just blend into society as though you were a Barbadian. We also place a lot of emphasis on cleanliness, and try to make provisions for people to feel that this is a hospitable environment. And the other element is the Barbadians themselves: we are a very warm and inviting people.

What is the rationale behind all the events and festivals that take place in Barbados?

This is how we have built out the brand. We looked at the core elements and decided that we needed to encourage people to move around the island and experience its attractions on a year-long basis. I want to emphasize this because this government has made a conscious decision to attract tourism year-round. Historically we have worked with peaks and troughs: in winter the whole world comes to Barbados, but arrivals start to decline in June. How do we keep people coming and ensure that restaurants and hotels still have business and workers are employed throughout the year? We have developed a major summer festival called Crop Over that is like a carnival experience, running over two months in a crescendo. During that time we have calypso competitions, large street parties, entertainers, and people go from party to party.

What other opportunities are there for a special vacation?

There is also the idea of health and wellness, and we aim this at the European visitors, who are more adventurous and curious and more historically sensitive than others, and who typically want to experience more of the island. We have developed experiences that take you across the island and include things like hiking and glamping, which is a big thing right now in the countryside. We have tried to merge together all the things we are doing well into experiences that we can celebrate in a big-event style, and that’s where these multiple festivals come into the picture. The latest one we are working on is what we call beach culture: in Barbados we play cricket, football, basketball and volleyball, and these are all things that can be played on a beach. Then, at sunset, we light up a bonfire, turn on the music, serve drinks, and the party begins.

What message do you have for German investors?

In the parish of Saint Michael, near Bridgetown, there is Carlisle Bay, which has a fantastic beach, and there are at least 14 opportunities for hotels and related investments there. We are opening up the door to the international community to help rebuild the Barbados tourism brand experience along that stretch of land. So far the expressions of interest have been coming in, and in a couple of cases it is moving very fast. We are making progress but there still is room for more. We have deliberately restructured our tax rates so that they are still OECD-compliant yet among the lowest in the world, so if you are making an investment that brings you profits of two, three million dollars, you may pay around 3% in taxes, which is exceptionally low.

What type of investors would you ideally like to attract?

We want investment, but we insist that it must be structured and conscious and sensitive. We don’t want to move the magic of the island into a state of over-tourism, we are very aware of what that has done in other parts of the world.  So there is room for investment along a two-kilometer stretch of virgin beach, and we are prepared to allow buildings to a certain height but not ridiculously tall, so you don’t lose the appeal of the tropical island. We are even considering doing this in the context of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so we have to be mindful of the heritage aspects. The projects also need to be sustainable and eco-friendly and protect the natural environment. Once you set down those markers, people will respect that, because the world is now ready to make these types of investments rather than those that are more hurtful than helpful. We are trying to lead that charge in this part of the Caribbean. We already banned all single-use plastics in April, all our vehicles are moving towards hybrids and electric cars, and we want to be free of fossil fuel by 2030.  We have redone our  town and country planning rules so people will use energy efficient-lighting and AC. This is the new thinking of the country.