By the Caribbean Journal staff

Barbados’ government says it is “committed” to diversifying the island’s tourism product offerings.

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart pointed to the importance of tourism as Barbados’ leading economic sector, promising to make the island as “congenial, comfortable and safe an environment as possible.”

“It is important to diversify our product offerings to appeal to a wider range of visitors and to attract additional people here,” Stuart said. “There are many visitors to our shores and potential visitors to our shores who are especially interested in matters relating to heritage and preservation and that is an area of our tourism sector which we are committed to developing.”

Barbados has been seeing very strong tourism growth of late, with one of the Caribbean’s highest year-over-year stayover arrival improvements in 2015.

That has come as the island has made a renewed push for tourism from the United States market.

“A repeat visitor told me that whenever she leaves Barbados to go back home, she leaves her heart here and since she knows she cannot live without a heart, she knows she has to come back,” Stuart said.