The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is seeking to double Texas’ share of its tourism customer base to 10 percent, the deputy prime minister has revealed, while revealing that the Houston Rockets basketball team will likely hold their training camp in Nassau.

Chester Cooper, also minister of tourism, investments and aviation, in a videotaped interview following his ministry’s promotional tour to Austin, Dallas and Houston voiced confidence that the growth in visitor numbers from the so-called ‘Lone Star’ state will outpace the forecast 20 percent increase in overall arrivals for 2023.

Detailing his team’s meeting with American Airlines, which is responsible for about 30 percent of The Bahamas international airlift capacity, he said: “This was a great opportunity for us to touch base with them and talk about their business; how well they are doing in terms of the load factors.

“We were assured that all of their flights, all of their routes, are doing exceptionally well. In one particular case, we were falling slightly below the 80 percent mark. We’ve agreed to work with them on some marketing initiatives so we were really strengthening our partnership for the future.

“We talked about some potential new airlift, some more frequent flights to Grand Bahama, for example. The continuation of American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Marsh Harbour, Abaco. We noticed it’s taking a short break in the month of May. We made a strong case for the flight to continue non-stop consistently throughout the year given the demand we are seeing for those months,” the deputy prime minister added.

“Overall, we continue to have a great relationship with American Airlines and we expect even more frequencies in terms of flights moving forward. There’s always room for growth. We are doing exceptionally well year-over-year. We are getting about 5-6 percent of our overall tourists coming from Texas. We think we can get that to 10 percent.”

Latia Duncombe, the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general, said The Bahamas’ delegation had discussed with American Airlines the possibility of launching “new routes from the LA (Los Angeles) market” and others that she declined to name.

Mr Cooper, meanwhile, suggested that the three cities visited provided fertile ground for increased tourism to The Bahamas due to their growth and relative wealth. With many Texas residents already owning second homes in this nation, the deputy prime minister said the Ministry of Tourism was encouraging several to continue their “natural endorsement of The Bahamas”.

He added that his team were also “very optimistic” that United Airlines will increase the frequency of its direct flights from Houston to Nassau from one to two per day during the summer, thereby “making accessibility easier”. Mr Cooper said: “I think the fact you can get to Nassau in less then three hours from here is a great plus.”

Describing Houston as a “significant airline hub”, offering connectivity to Europe, Canada, South America and the Middle East that The Bahamas can seek to exploit, Mr Cooper said The Bahamas was also “advancing in the partnership space” with the Dallas Cowboys football team as it seeks to gain access to the NFL franchise’s client, fan and corporate database - as well as partners - to generate new tourism leads.

“We’re looking to see how we can get more of their fans coming to The Bahamas. We had a great meeting with the ownership of the Houston Rockets today,” the deputy prime minister added of the NBA basketball franchise. “It was a great meeting not just for tourism but investment opportunities.

“These are multi-billion dollar franchises with significant investment activity throughout the year. Access to their players, access to their fans, access to their families and partners is what we are after. Today we are looking at tourism. We are returning to perhaps do an investment forum. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US and it’s growing rapidly. We want to see how we can leverage that growth.

“I can tell you we have a preliminary commitment from the Houston Rockets to have their training camp in Nassau in September, so we think that’s a big win for us and we’ll continue to pursue other opportunities like this. What it means when these training camps go on is that the team, they bring their spouses, their families, and sometimes their children, so there are significant heads in beds.’

Mr Cooper said Sylvester Turner, Houston’s mayor, who is in the latter stages of his second term in office has “committed” to leading a trade mission to The Bahamas before stepping down. “He wants to visit Nassau as well as Grand Bahama,” the deputy prime minister added, “so we are very positive about the possibilities there....

“Over the course of the year we anticipate we are going to increase overall arrivals to The Bahamas in the 20 percent range when we compare 2023 to 2022. I fully expect Texas will beat that 20 percent, so I am very optimistic.”