Barbados’ tourism product may be in for a big boost with the addition of over a dozen locations to the list of official places to visit.On Monday, the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), the agency tasked with marketing the island’s bread and butter industry unveiled the new places of interest and a plan to use more taxi operators to share stories about the island’s rich heritage and history with visitors.Acting Chief Executive Officer Marsha Alleyne said a part of the plan was to increase tourist spend on the island and expose more local shops and entrepreneurs to visitors and especially cruise passengers.“All of this is helping us to ensure that our visitor spend is increased, because at the end of the day we want that visitor spend to increase and we want more persons who come off of our cruise ships to explore the island. That means there will be economic empowerment for a lot more persons than traditionally we would have had,” Alleyne told a press conference at the B
With no cruise ships scheduled to dock in Barbados before October, taxi operators at the Bridgetown Port are anticipating a “grim” summer, with some even facing the prospect of losing their vehicles to the banks. This was the worrying picture painted by president of the Independent Seaport Taxi Union, Anthony Eastmond and Stevon Roberts, a member of the Bridgetown Port Taxi Co-op, in an interview with the MIDWEEK NATION. “Coming …
Government has backed away from cutting or removing any of the taxes on petrol products which many blame for high prices at the pump.The alternative, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Ryan Straughn declared, would be a decline in the public services that have kept many proverbial heads above the water in the COVID-19 pandemic, and curtailed capital works projects including a massive road repair programme.Straughn on Monday revealed that massive bills from the pandemic, the ashfall from the La Soufriere volcanic eruption and, most recently Hurricane Elsa, together with a $600 million falloff in revenue have left the economy in a “delicate” state. Exacerbating the already bad situation are price increases on the world market for basic commodities, including petrol, which has climbed to $3.99 and $3.16 per litre for gasoline and diesel, respectively, at the pump.
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