The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas is still only “scratching the surface” in the Latin American market, the tourism director-general said yesterday.

David Johnson said there was more penetration of that market to come through Copa Airlines and other strategic partners.

Mr Johnson added that while Copa had reduced its flight frequency to the Bahamas as an interim measure, it has a long-term commitment to this destination.

“We have a long-term development strategy with regard to Latin America, and Copa has a long-term strategy with regard to the Bahamas and their Nassau service,” he said.

“We’re going through a year of construction on about 50 per cent of the resort product, so that makes it difficult to aggressively market - outside of Atlantis - the western end of Nassau. Copa’s growth is limited in this fiscal year for us, but their long-term plans will call for working very closely with Baha Mar, who is going to focus on South America.”

Mr Johnson added: “Latin America, for us, is Copa plus a number of other strategic partners. We’re still only scratching the surface of Latin America. We have a lot more penetration ahead and we will be progressing with that in the months ahead.”

Mr Johnson noted that Copa has reduced its frequency from six to four flights a week. “Copa reduced their frequencies because within their system they ran into a shortage of aircraft deliveries, and they came to us to say they were going to take the flights down from six times to four times as an interim measure, and then we rebuild the flights back up,” he explained.