Barbados tourism leaders reported a total of 171,471 long stay visitor arrivals during the first quarter, breaking a record which has stood for a quarter century.
Alvin Jemmott, chairman of the Barbados Tourism Marketing, Inc said record arrivals were recorded in each of the first three months of 2015.
"This was a very strong winter season. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) has predicted a five per cent increase in long stay arrivals for the region for the entire year and we believe our performance in this first quarter bodes well for us to comfortably exceed that target," he said.
BTMI data showed growth of 27.7% from the US and the Canadian market grew 28.4%.
Arrivals from Germany also grew by 23.6%.
However the cruise sector declined by 6.1% to 217,139 passengers, due in part to larger vessels being replaced by smaller ships, the BTMI says.
