As business in Barbados continues to swell the government has come in with a bid to assist those airlines who continue to bring arrivals to the Caribbean island. Bonuses will be paid to those carriers who maintain a steady stream of tourist arrivals.The plan will include a US$12.5 million marketing campaign issued by the state maintained tourism dept. The leisure and tourism market generates roughly 15 percent of employment and around 11 percent of island GDP. It is for this reason that airlines must continue to bring visitors to the destination.This is not the first time the Barbadian government has had to assist its aviation sector.  BWIA (British West Indies Airways), faced bankruptcy earlier this year and several of its fleet were seized at Miami International Airport. The government stepped in to prevent the closure of the carrier.The largest beneficiary’s of the program will be British Airways (ten weekly flights from Gatwick Airport and one Sunday flight from Heathrow), with half a million US dollars and Air Canada with one million dollars.Smaller Caribbean islands maintain a strong dependency on arrivals with carriers such as BWIA, LIAT and Air Jamaica, yet the three combined cannot provided for the loss of bigger airlines.
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