Investment Opportunities in the Tourism Sector

regard to concessions. This would suggest all investors in the industry would benefit from the same concessions.

Following the most recent budget, there have been a number of initiatives implemented to give a much-needed boost to the island’s earnings capacity to counter the domestic and external debt obligations. While there have been recently-introduced measures such as the airline travel and tourism development taxes, a decline in tourism growth has not been the case in other similar tourismdriven Caribbean economies which have implemented similar initiatives. This provides some level of comfort regarding the impact on the local tourism industry.

Moreover, the recently issued review of statistics published by the World Tourism Travel Council underscore the continued growth of the local industry. There is projected growth of 3.6% in travel and tourism direct contribution to GDP for the period 2018 to 2028; and similarly, growth as it relates to leisure and business spending has been projected to be in the region of 3.3% to 3.6% for 2018 to 2028.

To this end, the opportunities and longterm growth prospects are trending in a positive direction for existing and potential investors seeking to refine and develop tourism business models in Barbados.