The Tribune

• Tourism chief warns: ‘Don’t let your guard down’

• Otherwise forecast winter rebound endangered

• Vaccinations ‘not yet in the numbers we’d like’

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The recent easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions and other moves to revive the tourism economy will “all be for nought” unless the current case surge is contained, a top hotel executive is warning.

Robert Sands, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) president, told Tribune Business that greater discipline and enforcement is required to bring the so-called “third wave” of infections under control as he urged: “Don’t let your guard down.”

Voicing optimism that cruise line home porting will provide a further boost for New Providence’s resort and tourism industry, which has rebounded less quickly than the Family Islands, Mr Sands added that allowing fully vaccinated tourists to enter The Bahamas without having to take a COVID PCR test within five days of travel should also aid the sector’s rebound.

“I believe it will have a positive impact,” he said. “We see it as a positive step in the right direction. It is one less impediment for persons to overcome in travelling to The Bahamas. As we continue to remove barriers, I believe it will increase the propensity of travellers to come to the destination.

“The booking pace numbers remain positive and are growing week by week. Certainly as we look at the booking pace compared to last year, we’re ahead, which is positive but it is still nowhere near where we’d like it to be although it is heading in the right direction.”

The Bahamian hotel and tourism sector, though, is up against the weakest possible comparatives because the industry had zero customers between late March and end-June in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdown and border closures.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, yesterday said stopover tourism arrivals have rebounded to a position where they are almost 40 percent of what they were in 2019, which was the last full year before the pandemic.

Based on Ministry of Tourism stopover (air arrivals) visitor data for 2019, and the number of non-residents obtaining Health Visas to travel to The Bahamas, tourism numbers were down 62.2 percent for April 2021 compared to the same month in the last COVID-free year.

Some 171,167 air arrivals travelled to The Bahamas in 2019, as opposed to just 64,047 travel visas being issued to foreign visitors in April 2021. March air arrivals were down almost 70 percent compared to the same month in 2019, with 201,578 tourists comparing to 60,497 health visa purchases for this year.

Health visa purchases of 20,768 in January 2021, and 28,425 did in February, were down by 84 percent and 82 percent, respectively, against 2019 air arrivals comparatives. Nevertheless, the figures do indicate a slow but steadily improving trend as vaccines roll-out in The Bahamas’ major source markets, such as the US, and border restrictions are eased domestically and abroad.

“The current indications are that, if we continue with the current trends, I think we can look forward to a more respectable winter season and 2022; certainly the first quarter and second quarter in 2022,” Mr Sands told Tribune Business. “While business in New Providence is not robust, we are seeing it come in, and hopefully with the introduction of home porting that is going to be an additional boost.”

He was unable to confirm how many hotel and tourism industry workers have been recalled to their posts, but said: “As hotels continue to grow their occupancies, demand for employees increases. I am satisfied that on a weekly basis hotels are calling back members of their workforce to help meet current demands they are facing,” the BHTA chief said.

Yet he warned: “All of that could be for nought if we don’t remain disciplined and adhere to the established health and safety protocols to protect ourselves and, equally important, for tourists that come to visit us.

“Now is not the time to let our guard down. It’s a parallel thrust that should be happening, and we are in fact doing that. We must be more disciplined and adhere to the protocols in place, and there is a need for increased oversight by the COVID authorities to ensure that persons are adhering to established protocols. Enforcement is very important.

“But the reality is that we are equally encouraged by the fact the vaccine roll-out is taking place. More and more persons are making themselves available to take the vaccine; not in the numbers we’d like and we continue to push that.”

Around 26,000 Bahamians and residents were vaccinated at last count, although the figures will have moved higher as a result of the Family Islands roll-out launch. A further 26 new COVID-19 cases were identified yesterday, with 51 persons said to be hospitalised of which four are in intensive care. Some 669 cases remain active, with more than 210 new infections recorded since last Thursday.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, told Tribune Business that the Bahamas was “heading towards” a system where fully vaccinated visitors - those who have received two jabs - will be able to enter this nation as many times as they want during a six-month period.

He explained that this timeline was being set because there is “some noise in the marketplace that you need a booster shot after six months” for certain types of COVID-19 vaccine, so the Ministry of Tourism’s overseers will need time to assess whether a visitor needs another jab and has to be re-approved.

“There are still impediments to travel, but they are acceptable impediments,” Mr D’Aguilar said. “We’ve received a lot of positive feedback about our online medical platform to come into the country.”