The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

This is a letter to the Minister of Tourism about arriving passengers going through immigration at the airport. Arriving off British Airways on Friday afternoon my wife and I were met in the pre-immigration area by a vast crowd waiting to go through immigration which filled the whole area to overflowing. There was hardly enough room to stand. As we went through the Permanent Residents line with a handful of other passengers we were okay, but a Ministry of Tourism official was warbling away to the crowd - “Welcome to the Bahamas” and “We welcome you to Paradise, it’s Better in the Bahamas” and so on. If I was a tourist at the back of the Immigration queue, I would not be happy to hear all that probably 10 times, especially if I had elderly parents or children with me. The queue did not appear to be moving very fast.

It is understood that the Bahamas has to watch who it allows into the country but there has to be a better way than what we witnessed on Friday and if as the papers suggest today we are gong to have an additional 3.5m tourists coming – they will be queuing on the tarmac.

Of course, the other downside of the big queue was that the baggage carousels were overflowing with luggage waiting for passengers to clear immigration. Until they took all the bags off the carousel the BA bags we were looking for were stuck somewhere outside so we had to wait.

Maybe a solution is in the works but if not there are going to be a lot of unhappy tourists. Of course we do understand it is the same going to the US without pre-clearance, but let’s be Better in the Bahamas.

PATRICK H THOMSON

Nassau,

March 3, 2020.