Bridgetown - Barbados

A tourist may visit a destination two or three times if he likes it, but in Barbados some visitors have reached a number that is difficult to believe: more than 100 visits to the island itself. From this exceptional relationship with its visitors, the Caribbean destination launched a new global tourism campaign under the title “Barbados Remembers Your Name.”

500 tourists are not satisfied with one visit

Behind the campaign are remarkable numbers; The Loyal Visitors Club of the Barbados Tourism Marketing Authority includes more than 500 registered members, and a traveler is not accepted into the club until they have completed at least 25 visits to the island, while some of its members have registered more than 100 trips to Barbados.

The island previously honored three visitors, each of whom exceeded the 100-visit barrier, in addition to others who recorded 64, 60, and more than 50 visits, in a rare example of tourists’ loyalty to one destination.

The secret is not only the beaches
Instead of relying on the traditional image of the Caribbean of beaches, sand, and sun, the campaign builds its message on the relationships that arise between tourists and residents. From hotel staff and guides to taxi drivers and restaurant and shop owners. The campaign will tell the stories of repeat visitors and the people they return to meet on the island.

“The people are the reason they come back.”

Andrea Franklin, CEO of Barbados Tourism Marketing, says repeat visitors consistently cite island residents as a key part of their reasons for returning, explaining that over time they build relationships with people they remember and places they return to, and these connections become part of the Barbados experience itself.

A lesson for Arab destinations

The experience carries an important message for the Arab tourism sector: the competition for tourists does not end when they attract them for the first time. With the expansion of new destinations and hotels in the region, the rate of return and building a personal relationship with the visitor becomes an indicator no less important than the numbers of arrivals. Because the tourist who returns dozens of times practically turns into an ambassador for the destination, and not just a number in the arrival statistics.