Barbados becomes first in the Caribbean to sign on to MasterCard's Tourism Insight Tool Platform.

The contract was signed by Ministry of Tourism Permanent Secretary Francine Blackman, as well as the CEO of the BTMI, Dr Jens Thaenhart, and the group's Marketing Director, Robert Chase.

Mastercard Vice President, Principal Data and Services for Latin America and the Caribbean, John Munoz, explained that Tourism Insights uses machine learning algorithms and human expertise to capture timely and useful data by Mastercard users, that can be analysed to help track trends and investigate emerging or growing markets, which can be used to increase visitor spend and gain an edge in the very competitive tourism industry.

Commenting on the announcement he said: "Barbados is the first country in the Caribbean to adopt the Tourism Insight platform. Barbados is joining Paris, London, Madrid, Seville, Greece, New York and Tokyo…. So please feel free to feel proud of this being the tip of the spear and leading the tourism ecosystem in this digital era.”

Ms Blackman commented: “With this information, Barbados will be better able to determine the windows of opportunity for marketing campaigns, developing marketing campaigns, as well as understanding the levels of satisfaction within its industry products and services, … all with the intention of spurring greater revenue growth.”

Dr. Thraenhart added that in partnering with MasterCard’s platform, Barbados can become a smart and data-driven destination. “I think having partners like MasterCard helping us and supporting us, makes it possible to move in that direction.  This is, I think, extremely important as we’re coming out of COVID-19 and making sure that we recover in a way that not just looks at pure advertising but really understands the audiences in order to meet the demands of a very competitive environment.”

The CEO along with the Director of Marketing, Robert Chase stressed they were very excited to leverage the data to help increase visitor spending that would benefit all players in the industry, as the BTMI seeks to build an inclusive and bottom-up tourism marketing environment. The Tourism Insights Tool initiative falls under the Ministry’s National Tourism Program, Component two, which is aimed at enhancing Barbados’ tourism industry by strengthening digital marketing.

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