The Tribune

Are we talking about the same thing, Mr Foulkes?

A new quarantine rule was announced by the US, the Tourism Minister called it devastating, hotels started announcing furlough plans, the Grand Lucayan reopening date continues to be a rolling target and… Dion Foulkes is optimistic? Wait, did we miss something?

The Labour Minister wasn’t even just saying he was optimistic, but “very optimistic about the employment situation in The Bahamas”. Ok, but he couldn’t be talking about the tourism sector, could he, not with all those new hurdles. But yes, he adds “…especially the tourist sector”.

Well, blow us down with a feather.

His optimism comes from pointing to Sandals saying their Exuma hotel will reopen at the end of next month, and their Nassau operation in March – with the remaining Baha Mar hotels also to reopen in March.

At the same time, however, hotels are seeing a drop in bookings following the new quarantine requirement, while a hotel union chief said there were “a lot of cancellations” following that announcement.

With respect, we might wonder what planet Mr Foulkes is on – but then we also wondered that back in October when he claimed that the “vast majority” of Bahamians laid off due to the pandemic were back at work. Had that been so, we wonder who the workers were being taken back on as the likes of Atlantis and Baha Mar reopened their doors.

It’s easy to make claims about employment rates – but they need to be backed up by numbers, and as was noted back in October, the Department of Statistics suspended its surveys on the unemployment rate.

It’s almost as if Mr Foulkes is putting a smile on his face and declaring everything is fine while the house is burning down around him.

His comments yesterday were not terribly sensitive either – when he talked about furloughs at Atlantis, he said the employment level remains the same, saying 200 have been sent home at Royal Towers, but 200 are being re-engaged at The Cove. That’s not going to be of much comfort to the 200 being sent home.

We would love the optimistic world of Mr Foulkes to come to pass – but we’re not holding our breath.

Abaco hard hit

There’s not so much optimism over in Abaco, where the effects of the change in US policy are already being felt.

Abaco has a different position than many other parts of The Bahamas, with a lot of US citizens owning second homes there.

Already blasted by Hurricane Dorian, the new quarantine rule is already bringing a chill to the economy.

The president of Abaco’s Chamber of Commerce, Ken Hutton, said that it is already deterring second homeowners from returning to rebuild their properties that are still damaged from the hurricane.

“We’ve had second homeowners that were here that started the rebuilding process and left before the 26th. They left before that. They cut the amount of time they had short because of that. We’ve already seen a serious deterrent effect here because of that.”

That of course means money not being spent on the island on supplies, repairs, hiring workers and so on.

“We can’t catch a break,” said Mr Hutton, and it’s hard to disagree.

The immediate concern with the travel restriction has been tourism – but the investment of second homeowners and businesspeople operating in The Bahamas is also a massive part of our economy, especially in places such as Abaco. That will dry up as surely as the tourist dollar will dry up.

What do we do? That’s hard to say when there are already so many demands on the public purse – but the sooner we can start getting vaccines in arms, and showing we are on top of the virus the better. Our numbers continue to be relatively low thankfully – but our biggest bargaining chip will be to show we are ahead of the curve in tackling this virus. That we can work on – the rest lies in the hands of others on the restrictions placed by other countries. The likes of Abaco have suffered enough in the past couple of years – let’s do our part to give them a lifeline.