The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Ministry of Tourism’s director-general yesterday said The Bahamas is “15 percent ahead” of pre-COVID business volumes for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

Joy Jibrilu, speaking at the Caribbean Hotel Investment Conference & Operations Summit (CHICOS), said the Caribbean is “leading the way” on tourism’s recovery with the region just 25 percent down compared to 2019 bookings. This, she added, placed the Caribbean ahead of the wider Americas region, where bookings are at 63 percent of pre-COVID levels.

“But if you look at Thanksgiving and Christmas for The Bahamas, we are ahead 15 percent of where we were in 2019, which was a record year. So the future really looks bright, and it’s not just in the immediate short term,” Mrs Jibrilu said, with 2022 first quarter bookings for airlines having “exceeded” projections.

She added: “So we’re now ramping up. We work six months ahead. So we’re ramping up for summer 2022. Come January, February, we’re going to be looking at winter 2022 to ensure that we keep this pace of flow.

“But feedback has been strong for The Bahamas, and it is not just Nassau-centric but a multiplicity of islands. The Family Islands are booming, and that’s because they have an incredible product that appeals to people now. The traveller is so sensitive to sustainable tourism, so they love the models of our Family Islands and also the possibility for social distancing.

“We have been working to a plan, and that plan in 2020, we were looking at tourism readiness and recovery,” Mrs Jibrilu continued. “That was putting in place all of the health protocols that were needed to ensure that we had a safe re-opening of tourism. I think you’ve seen that rolled out very well.

“At the beginning of 2021, when we recognised this pent-up demand, when we saw what was happening in terms of the attraction for Bahamas vacations, we then started to change our marketing focus.

“So in 2020, we were out in the marketplace marketing, but it had a completely different feel. We were just letting the world know that we were still here. We were not selling The Bahamas, but we were ensuring that The Bahamas was top of mind for everyone.

“We we’re just showing beautiful images of the islands of The Bahamas, our water, anything that would just appeal to people who were locked up and wanted to get away,” she added. “But now we have ramped up our marketing completely, and so we’re really now sort of capitalising on this ramped-up marketing.”

This marketing will be targeted at key source countries, targeting more airlift from Europe, the UK and Canada. “We’ve got some great plans for 2022,” Mrs Jibrilu added.

She said the Ministry of Tourism also plans to exploit potential synergies with Bahamas Invest, the Government’s new investment promotion agency, which now comes under the same ministry.

“I’m delighted that Bahamas Invest actually has a booth here,” Mrs Jibrilu said. “They have investment officers here, and while people have been meeting with us, and certainly I’m having conversations with people and letting them know that the opportunity exists for them to have those conversations with Bahamas Invest, we are ensuring that they speak to the right people.

“We don’t want to be a bottleneck, we’re there to support. I’m glad that the Ministry of Tourism was able to be the sponsor of this, and it was fortuitous that it just marries both of those areas of the minister’s portfolio. But we’re really, really here as the support act to Bahamas Invest.”