The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A downtown Nassau business yesterday challenged whether the cruise lines are giving their passengers correct information as just 20 percent are currently disembarking the vessel while in port.

Tanya Bain, retail manager at the Perfume Bar, told Tribune Business that business is starting to pick up at both the company’s downtown locations after it reopened the store at the junction of East Street and Bay Street.

She added, though, that only 20 percent of cruise passengers are leaving their vessel when it is docked in Nassau. Ms Bain said: “Out of the 1,000 people that arrive via the cruise ships every week, there are only about 200 that get off of the ship, and out of that 200 we only see about 10 percent of that in our stores.

“We’ve discovered that the cruise ships are giving wrong information to their passengers. I don’t know if they want to keep them on the boat. They are telling them that the stores on Bay Street were closed today [yesterday] because the election, and the day before that they said it was some holiday that doesn’t exist in The Bahamas, which was a Jewish holiday.

“So that’s been basically our challenge. The passengers that are not listening are coming off. There needs to be some involvement from the Ministry of Tourism, and they should be informing the cruise ships about what’s going on in the country.”

Describing this as the “first time” such a challenge has ever been experienced, Ms Bain suggested the cruise ships may be trying to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among their passengers by discouraging onshore exploration.

Kanta Francis, owner/operator of Kanta general store, said: “Business is coming along nicely. Normally we depend on the cruise ships, but the cruise ships are not coming as usual. We are just making a small bit of money, nothing spectacular. We are just hoping the cruise ships resume normally, but what we have now is better than lockdown.”