The Tribune

By Leandra Rolle

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

DESPITE heavy tourism traffic downtown before the holidays, straw vendors say they are experiencing their worst Christmas season to date, with few to no sales most days.

Rebecca Small, president of the Straw Business Persons Society, told The Tribune yesterday that Wednesday was the first day this month that she earned a profit.

She said before COVID-19, business around this time would usually be booming, but now things have changed.

She attributed the decline in sales to inflation and the high cost of living crisis facing many worldwide.

“Honestly speaking, one of my business partners said ‘small’ and I said for whatever reason this Christmas is low,” she said, “and a lot of times people see because the cruise (ships) here ‘oh they making a lot of money.’

“And sometimes you will have five, six (cruise ships) and you may not even make $80 for that day.

“This date today, it’s the only day for me for the entire December we made something today and see people don’t understand that.”

The straw market was among the businesses hardest hit during the pandemic as it was one of the last sectors to receive approval for reopening.

As a part of the market’s new safety protocols, vendors now work on a rotation basis and as such, are divided in two groups — group A and group B — who only work on certain days.

Yesterday, Ms Small said the majority of vendors prefer this schedule as it makes business less competitive, allowing for more earnings.

“Before the pandemic, we would make $30 with seven days and all of us, but now that we’re on rotation, you make more. It’s not (substantially) more but it’s more and we know if all of us come back, it’s going to be a problem,” she said

“Competition is going to be stiff, and then you may hear some quarrelling and then we don’t want that because tourism is our number one industry. Our image and our presentation must be to me top priority when we’re going to cater to the tourism industry.

“And so, we want to avoid problematic situations and prevention is better than cure. If the vendors are saying to the government, please leave us like this. Now, you do have some persons who disregard the rotation and they said they’re coming out every day.

“And so that’s one of the challenges we have with the Group A and B days because people feel that they need to come out seven days.”

The association president also highlighted other concerns expressed by the group, among them the need for more advertisements.

She also lamented a lack of availability and affordability of certain products like straw to make their products.

The situation, she added, has prompted vendors to get creative and use other means to finish their products.

However, she was also clear that this does not mean that vendors were not doing “authentic” work.

“When they say we don’t do authentic work, it grieves us because we do authentic work in here every day and not everybody, because some people like the t-shirts, the different souvenirs, but for me and many others, you are going to find straw,” Ms Small added.

She was referring to earlier comments made by government officials in response to concerns about vendors in the Nassau cruise port selling the same products that Nassau Straw Market vendors peddle.

Officials have said the marketplace will sell authentic Bahamian craft when they reopen next year.

“But, the challenge is straw now is becoming challenging because to find it for the people to have to plait is a problem,” Ms Small stressed. “So it’s not a shortage. It’s a lack of vision, to me, in (ensuring) that we have straw, palm trees, coconut, the various plaits for the vendors to be able to keep going with the straw industry. That’s one aspect.

“So, when you are talking about, ‘we are not selling the straw’, that’s a challenge and if another market is being promoted over us to say they are authentic and we are not, that’s hard on us.”

She noted that business is evolving worldwide and said the same rings true for straw vendors.

As for her hopes for 2023, Ms Small said she hopes this administration will continue to engage industry stakeholders and hear their concerns and that vendors will “see some light at the end of the tunnel for the new year.”