The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas has taken a “crazy” approach to tourism marketing that has effectively ignored 98 per cent of its land mass, a former minister arguing that this nation has more growth potential than “any other Caribbean country”.

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace said the need to expand and broaden the focus from Nassau/Paradise Island had ultimately caused the rift between himself and Ministry of Tourism officials, his view being that this could only be done via a digital/online marketing effort.

Explaining that he had been pushing to modernise the Bahamas’ tourism marketing approach and place this nation “on the leading edge”, Mr Vanderpool-Wallace said disputes over promotional strategy were nothing new at the Ministry of Tourism.

“I’ve seen this movie before,” he revealed, disclosing to Tribune Business that he had previously encountered resistance when trying to move the Bahamas’ marketing structure away from one based on ‘travel agent calls’ to an online-focused approach.

“I believe very strongly that the potential for the Bahamas is greater than any other country in the Caribbean,” Mr Vanderpool-Wallace told Tribune Business.

“Eighty per cent of our tourists are coming to 2 per cent of our land. We’re crazy.

“Unless we expand and do things differently, we’re going to be increasingly focused on Nassau/Paradise Island, and our economy, too, instead of looking at the other 98 per cent of possibilities. That’s what it’s all about.”

Espousing the argument that digital, online and social media marketing were the main mechanisms for doing this, the former Minister of Tourism said he had wanted to leave a succession plan at the Ministry that focused on digitally-savvy, young professionals “moving ourselves into the future”.

And Mr Vanderpool-Wallace told Tribune Business of the marketing contract controversy: “The intention was to modernise how we do business in tourism.

“We always want to be on the leading edge to grow tourism in the Bahamas. That’s where we always want to be. This was a very serious exercise to try and move the Bahamas to a new level of tourism marketing.

“When we do these things, you’re always going to get some resistance, and that’s the bottom line.”

He added: “It was an internal matter to the Ministry of Tourism; what direction we go in, and how we get there.

“I’ve been to this movie before. There was a time when I was pushing the Bahamas to move away from calling on travel agents, and there was enormous resistance to that.

“The structure was set up to call on travel agents, and I wanted to go to digital marketing, online and Internet.”