Officials of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) are pleading with authorities to do more to urgently tackle the issue of gun violence and to remove the remaining COVID-19 restrictions, which they say continue to make the destination uncompetitive.Chairman of the BHTA Renée Coppin warned that if the violence was not arrested then the struggling industry, which has been suffering from very little business over the past two-and-a-half-years could come under even more pressure.She argued that while she understood there were some impacts from international threats over which the island had no control including the climate crisis, inflation and “rumours of war”, BHTA members were concerned about the threat of violence on the island and the COVID-19 measures.Coppin said while they feared drawing attention to the issue by speaking about it, the association feels that if they keep quiet “then we do not lend our voice and support to the efforts to reduce it”. This, she said, placed them “between a rock and a hard place”.
