Barbados’ tourism industry is moving further along the road of recovery, with arrivals and occupancy levels last quarter surpassing numbers recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic.Chairman of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Renee Coppin disclosed that the final months of 2022 saw increases over corresponding periods in 2020 and 2021, saying this may mark the light at the end of the tunnel.“We are definitely very happy to be able to report that we ended the last quarter of last year on a relatively high note and that the island, for the first time since the pandemic touched our shores and closed our industry in March 2020, was able to achieve arrival numbers in December 2022 that exceeded pre-pandemic levels,” she said. Arrivals were at 59 216, a 4.58 per cent increase over December 2019 when there were 56 624 arrivals.During the BHTA’s first quarterly update for the year, Coppin reported that there were also increases in October and November 2022 over 2020 and 2021. However, those numbers were still lower than 2019 levels – 30.95 per cent less in October and a decline of 30.27 per cent for November.Reporting the findings of the Smith Travel Report on occupancy levels, Coppin said that on average, the numbers in the last quarter were higher last year. Occupancy levels were at 71.2 per cent, compared to 69.5 per cent in the same period in 2019.
