By YOURI KEMP
Tribune Business Reporter
ykemp@tribunemedia.net
A Cabinet minister yesterday argued local COVID case numbers are the only obstacle to tourism’s revival as May’s health travel visa purchases were “substantially higher” than the prior month.
Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister for tourism and aviation, told reporters that visitor numbers continue to trend upwards due to the ongoing US vaccination roll-out, increased travel confidence and the removal of border and other health restrictions.
“I’m very encouraged,” he added. “Numbers are increasing; they are moving upwards. You will have seen it at the airports, you would have seen it at the hotels.... more visitors are coming to The Bahamas. I see it on the health visa website. There was a significant increase in the number of persons purchasing a health visa in the month of May.
“I haven’t quite finalised the numbers yet, but I can tell you they were substantially larger than they were in April. So we are moving in the right direction. The numbers are increasing, and the only thing that we have left to manage is the amount of COVID in the country and that is directly, of course, linked to vaccination.”
Mr D’Aguilar said the Family Islands have “navigated [the pandemic] far better than the bigger properties, say here in New Providence”. He added: “The Family Islands were, as we’ve always said, designed for social distancing.
“They are low density, boutique-type environments, and persons are looking to get away to remote parts of the planet. The Family Islands are associated with that getting away from crowds and lots of people. So they have always been the most resilient component of our tourism product.”
Mr D’Aguilar also hailed the resumption of direct British Airways flights to Nassau as giving the European tourism market, which generated around seven percent of pre-COVID visitors, a “mechanism” for getting to this nation.
“We were indeed very delighted to see British Airways on the ground. The flight came in with 233 passengers out of 275, meaning a load factor of 85 percent,” Mr D’Aguilar said.
“But what was so economically impactful about that flight was that it terminated in Nassau. So that meant every single passenger on that plane got off here in Nassau, and is either a returning resident or citizen, or visitor coming on vacation here.”
“As you know, we had no links with Europe. It was very, very difficult to get here from Europe and, finally, with the reestablishment of the British Airways non-stop direct flight from London Heathrow, persons in Europe and the United Kingdom now have a mechanism to return to The Bahamas,” he added.
“So that was a very significant and impactful flight. The flights are going to be once a week. And, as the load factors or the demand dictates, we will move to a greater frequency.”
Noting that the UK still has The Bahamas on its “amber list” of countries, meaning that persons returning from this nation will need to quarantine at home for ten days and take a COVID-19 test on day two and day eight, Mr D’Aguilar said: “The UK is a long way away, so we always have the barrier of distance to get over. Then obviously you have the requirement to quarantine when you return and that is another impediment to travel.
“But I am of the view that there is a body of persons in the UK that just don’t care about that, and they want to come on vacation to The Bahamas and to the Caribbean in general. For tourism to rebound, you have to keep COVID down, and to keep COVID down you have to get vaccinations. I can make it no simpler than that.”
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