EDITOR, The Tribune.
From all the coverage in the UK press the Royal Visit to the Bahamas has been an outstanding success. As my family are owners of travel agencies along the south coast of England and with family connections in Nassau we have always tried to promote your country to our clients.
Over the last two days we have had a huge spike in interest about booking holidays to your country. How very unfortunate that your Tourism Minister and staff did not have the foresight to co-ordinate the anticipated success of the Royal Visit with your entry requirements.
Immediately - not in weeks or months - you must abolish the Health Visa and medical tests. After over two years of rules and regulations for travel the public will not now tolerate all the rules being imposed. They will travel where it is easy to enter. Clients believe that a double vaccination certificate shown at the airport check in should be sufficient to get a boarding pass and be on their way as in previous years.
How sad for us to have clients come into our agencies wanting to book for The Bahamas and be informed of all your rules and the ridiculous three-day time limit to entry for a rapid antigen test and the unreasonable cost of the Visa. This causes too much uncertainty to travel. Clients also do not want their private information on websites which could be hacked. Nearly everyone who approached us expressed surprise and regret and have either not booked awaiting a change in your entry rules or booked elsewhere as nearly all other destinations are now very easy to enter without all your anti-tourist cumbersome requirements. Complaints from other travel agents and visitors over the past two years were ignored by your Government.
The Bahamas needs business. Where is the common sense with COVID-19 definitely on the wane to be keeping these rules which are seriously affecting your tourist industry and economy? Change must come immediately if we are to salvage the goodwill generated to your country by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
JOHN COOPER
England,
March 29, 2022.
Comments
moncurcool 2 years, 1 month ago
Amazing how these foreigners from Canada, the US, and now England are constantly writing letters saying what the Bahamas should do and keep ignoring what their own countries are doing.
DDK 2 years, 1 month ago
Amazing that they actually bother if their constructive comments are not appreciated!
Alan1 2 years, 1 month ago
This is an excellent letter outlining the problems to enter our country.It is done in a spirit of goodwill and constructive criticism. We are falling behind because visitors,as he says, can go nearly everywhere else without all the hassles. Tourism is too important for our economy to be ignoring advice from people who actually book visitors to our shores. We have to make the final decision but with Covid19 declining it is sound advice to get our economy up and running again.
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