The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Nassau/Paradise Island hotels are eyeing a 35 percent year-over-year increase in “business on the books” for 2023, it was disclosed yesterday, with “loaded” airline seats through June also up on 2022.

Joy Jibrilu, the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board’s (NPIPB) chief executive, told the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) directors meeting that the industry’s performance for the 2023 first quarter “bodes well for a great year ahead”.

“For business on the books for all of 2023, as it stands now we’re up 35 percent compared to last last year,” she disclosed. “If you’re looking at the booking pace for Nassau/Paradise Island, it’s 30-60 days out...... For the period April to August, we’re up 22 percent. We expect those booking numbers to rise as we get closer to travel.”

Turning to airlift, Mrs Jibrilu said Nassau was now among a select group of Caribbean destinations that can boast of direct flights from all three New York area airports. “We now have direct service every day from La Guardia on Jet Blue,” she said. “That flight was launched on March 30. With the launch of this flight, Nassau is one of the Caribbean destinations that can boast of having airlift from all three airports that service the New York area.. This is really exciting.”

The three airports in question are La Guardia, JFK and Newark. “In terms of airlift, our overall capacity for the first quarter of this year, airlift was up 15 percent as compared to 2022,” Mrs Jibrilu said. “If you look at the amount of loaded seats through to June of this year, we’re up 14 percent compared to last year so the right direction all around.”

As for the Promotion Board’s revamped website, which has been made more user friendly for potential tourists using their mobile phones, she added: “We’re having record visitors to our site. For the first quarter of this year, the first three months of this year, we had three million visitors, which is an average of one million per month.

This represented a 99 percent increase on the 2022 first quarter, and Mrs Jibrilu said visitor numbers had reached 3.5m by mid-April 2023, marking a 92 percent jump for the year-to-date. Acknowledging that “conversion” of these visitors into persons who visit the websites of member resorts is the critical indicator, she added: “For the first quarter we were up 84 percent with 650,000 conversions. For the year-to-date we’re up 79 percent compared to last year.”

So-called website conversions stood at 737,000 at mid-April. Mrs Jibrilu also indicated that there were increased airlift prospects following the Promotion Board’s attendance at the recent Routes Americas conference, which is the region’s major airline summit. “We had a wonderful showing. We had about 20 meetings with 17 airlines, and also with airports as well, and we are hopeful that good news can come,” she said.

Meanwhile, Marques Williams, the Association of Bahamas Marinas (ABM) president, told the meeting that the industry is some 19 percent ahead of 2019 figures for private vessel arrivals for the year-to-date. Bookings for the full year are also currently 2 percent up on pre-COVID figures from that same year. “I just want to convey the sentiments of our members that we have positive filings and bookings for the rest of the year,” he added.

Kerry Fountain, the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board’s (BOIPB) executive director, previously told Tribune Business that member properties were either exceeding or matching both their 2023 targets and 2019’s pre-pandemic performance on five of the ten islands where it is represented.

Based on figures for January and February 2023, he revealed that hotels on Abaco, Andros, Harbour Island, Acklins and San Salvador are ahead of predictions that they will achieve 100 percent of annual room nights sold, and 110 percent of room revenues, generated immediately before COVID hit.

Should those goals be realised, it would return the industry to a position matching - or exceeding - 2019 levels. Voicing optimism that this outcome will be realised, Mr Fountain said his confidence was based on increased airlift seat capacity for 2023, the removal of COVID-related travel restrictions that were still present in early 2022, and the return of group business via the meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) segment.

While initially disappointed that two major Family Island markets, Eleuthera and Exuma, appeared to have under-performed during the winter tourism season’s start, he added that “lifting the hood” revealed this was due to room inventory at one major property on either island being taken offline.

The Promotion Board chief, though, warned that “everybody has to work in sync” if 2023’s ambitions are to be realised, and said hotels must find ways to distinguish themselves from - and offer a competitive advantage over - the rapidly expanding vacation rental market that is increasingly making inroads into their customer base.