Barbados’ tourism sector closed out 2025 with robust, broad-based growth, fueled by swelling international visitor demand, climbing hospitality pricing, and targeted industry investment that reinforced the sector’s position as the island nation’s primary economic engine, according to the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA).
In his annual general meeting address, BHTA CEO Senator Ryan Forde highlighted the industry’s remarkable resilience in the face of ongoing global economic volatility, noting that tourism has anchored 19 consecutive quarters of national economic expansion. A deep dive into 2025 performance metrics reveals consistent gains across all key industry indicators: hotel occupancy climbed from 63.8% in 2024 to 65.2% last year, while the average daily room rate (ADR) jumped 13.7% from $631.81 to $718.19. This combination of higher occupancy and stronger pricing pushed revenue per available room (RevPAR) – a critical benchmark for hospitality performance – up nearly 16% year-over-year, from $40.79 to $487.17.
Targeted efforts to boost visitation during the traditional low summer shoulder season also delivered tangible results. Average occupancy between May and October hit 55.2%, a 2.9% improvement over 2024, with only September recording occupancy below the 50% threshold. “Tourism is built on the full visitor experience, not any single offering,” Forde said. “We will continue to lead the nation’s growth as we balance an unprecedented wave of new developments, property refurbishments, and experience upgrades, all while navigating ongoing global geopolitical tensions.”
Beyond core performance gains, the BHTA rolled out several transformative industry initiatives in 2025. The flagship project is the new Bajan Harvest Hub, developed with funding from a competitive regional grant awarded through Compete Caribbean. Led by BHTA’s Greg Alleyne, the hub operates as a coordinated, climate-resilient, demand-driven supply network that connects local farmers and packing facilities directly to hospitality buyers via structured planning and digital tools, fundamentally strengthening linkages between the agriculture and tourism sectors.
The association also completed a full rebranding and expansion of the BHTA Tourism Fund, a program first launched in the early 2000s. Under the leadership of project lead Sade Deane, the overhaul expanded the fund’s eligibility to cover all BHTA membership categories, resolving longstanding issues around brand alignment and low participation. In community outreach, the association launched the Adopt-A-School Futsal Tournament, spearheaded by Tessalee Moore and Rianna Taylor. The event brought industry stakeholders together in the slow period following the annual Crop Over festival, raising more than $30,000 to fund critical school supplies and infrastructure including water tanks, projectors, fans, and football nets.
Membership growth also reflected the BHTA’s expanding influence, with 39 new organizations joining the association in 2025. Forde projected further membership expansion in 2026, driven by the upcoming opening of three major new hospitality properties: Hotel Indigo, Royalton Vessence Barbados, and the Blue Monkey Hotel and Beach Club. He credited the association’s aggressive advocacy work for both strong retention and new recruitment, noting that efforts have already secured partial policy wins in the national government budget. The budget reallocated oversight of the car rental industry to the Ministry of Tourism and International Transport, enabling the sector to access specialized support, while standalone restaurants secured enhanced concessional assistance to improve their global competitiveness. “I say partial because we are still working through the operational details of these changes with the Ministry of Finance,” Forde explained. “We are hopeful that the minister and his team can finalize the guidelines and launch implementation early this quarter.”
Over the past year, the BHTA also prioritized aggressive international destination marketing, sending delegations to nine major global trade shows across the United Kingdom, the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. A high-level delegation including Forde, representatives from Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), and private sector operators attended the TEAMS Sports Tourism Conference in Ohio, where the team secured promising leads for destination-based sporting events across volleyball, wrestling, futsal, and cheerleading. Forde confirmed that Barbados has already won the bid to host the 2027 World Bridge tournament in September 2025, an event expected to draw between 2,500 and 4,000 international attendees.
At the World Travel Market in London, U.K. travel operators reaffirmed Barbados’ position as a top destination in its market segment, praising the hundreds of millions of dollars in ongoing investment in property renovations and new hotel developments. In a major regional win, a joint bid by the BHTA, BTMI, and Barbados’ Ministry of Tourism secured hosting rights for the 2026 Caribbean Hospitality Industry Exchange Forum (CHIEF), CSHAE, and Taste of the Caribbean in November 2026, as well as Marketplace 45 in May 2027.
The BHTA also saw explosive growth in its digital and public outreach in 2025: total social media impressions hit 3,749,067, a 210.1% year-over-year increase, while total follower count across Facebook, Instagram, and the newly launched professional LinkedIn page grew 30% to more than 14,000.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, Forde acknowledged that headwinds including rising oil prices, airline industry volatility, and geopolitical tensions have introduced some uncertainty for both consumer and business spending. But he emphasized that the sector’s collective approach positions it to continue growing. “External pressures build year after year, but the resilience of the Barbados economy is rooted in the strength of our people,” Forde said. “An individualistic ‘I’ or ‘me’ mindset cannot survive tough times in a dynamic industry like tourism. Instead, we rely on a collective ‘we’ and ‘us’ mindset, as we face challenges and seize opportunities together… The Decade of Change continues.”