On the heels of record tourist arrivals for the month of January, acting prime minister, Richard Sealy, wants to see more visitors coming to Barbados from Continental Europe. He made this known on Friday when the Netherlands ambassador to Barbados, Jeroen de Graaf, paid him a courtesy call.

The Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau has announced global visitor numbers to Cancun increased by 7.5 percent in 2014. There were a total of 4,013,002 tourist arrivals at Cancun International Airport last year compared with 3,728,247 in 2013.

Cuba is facing a tourism tsunami as Americans who can more easily visit the island rush to experience a frozen-in-time culture before it disappears.

Barbados’ tourism sector has begun to show signs of growth. In 2014 long stay visitor arrivals increased for the first time in two years by 2.2 percent to 519,638 visitors, compared to the previous year, according to Barbados Tourism Marketing (BTMI).

Aruba led a strong year for visitor arrivals among the Caribbean’s Dutch islands in 2014. Aruba reached one million stay-over visitors for the first time in 2014 with a total of 1.07 million arrivals, a 9.5 percent increase over 2013, according to Aruba Tourism Authority (ATA) statistics.

He also said he was urging the Immigration and Labor Departments to “continue stepping up their efforts and enforce policies that will ensure that Turks and Caicos Islanders are given first priority and fair opportunities for employment in our vibrant labor market.”