The Barbados Food, Wine and Rum Festival 2012
The Barbados Food, Wine and Rum Festival 2012has again attracted some of the most well-known celebrity chefs in the world.
It is scheduled for November 16th to 19th and Totally Barbados was there for this year’s launch at the Mount Gay Visitors Centre.
Barbados Food, Wine and Rum Festival 2012
World renowned chef Marcus Samuelson is one of the international culinary experts expected to attend, along with other big names like Aaron McCargo Jr., Anne Burrell, Mark McEwan, Paul Yellin and Stephanie Izard.
Joining them will be several local award-winning chefs, including Creig Greenidge, Mitchell Husbands, Angela Garraway Holland, Henderson Butcher and Wilwore Jordan.
They are all expected to serve up sizzling culinary delights at what is now one of the most anticipatedevents on the Barbados calendar.
The festival is rapidly enhancing the island’s growing reputation for great food and builds on the country’s 350 years of experience and global fame for some of the best rum anywhere.
At the launch President of the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) David Rice said the festival attracted more than 1,800 tourists last year and 60 international journalists who came to cover the event. Barbados is hoping to attract even more people this year.
The BTA said it will be heavily marketing the festival in the U.S., which s one of the island’s major source markets for tourists, in addition to using social media like Facebook and Twitter to spread the word.
Recognizing that the event represents an opportunity for tourism players the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association plans to make the most of it. The association represents most of the hotel room stock on the island and also a number of businesses that are not in the accommodation sector, such as many attractions andBarbados restaurants.
According to executive vice president, Sue Springer, BHTA members will offer special offers and discounts in Barbados designed to entice tourists to come and enjoy the culinary fair.
In total over 10,000 locals and visitors are expected to patronize the festival, which is now in its third year. That is more than two and a half times the number that attended when it was first held in 2010.
Such growth is what prompted the island’s Tourism Minister Richard Sealy to say that the event could eventually be one of the biggest foreign exchange generators for Barbados.
He said the potential is there and the sky is the limit in terms of where the Barbados Food, Wine and Rum Festival could be in the next 10 years.
