The Tribune

Leading Nassau/Paradise Island resorts have revealed that 2022’s room revenue more than doubled year-over-year as the industry benefited from the post-COVID travel rebound.

The Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board (NPIPB), during a New York event designed to promote the destination to travellers, disclosed that occupancies at member properties rose by 23 percentage points compared to 2021 while room revenue was up year-over-year by 112 percent.

The gains were aided by the fact that 2021 provided relatively weak comparatives given that it was still plagued by COVID-related lockdowns and other restrictions. Still, the figures unveiled by the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board provided further evidence of the ongoing recovery, with foreign air arrivals to the destination rising 71 percent to end-December 2022.

Joy Jibrilu, the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board’s chief executive, said in a statement: “Nassau and Paradise Island have always been well-known destinations, but there continues to be exciting new reasons to visit in 2023 that will lure both new and returning visitors. We are so pleased with all that is happening in Nassau Paradise Island and can’t wait to have all of you experience a taste of The Bahamas.”

The updates came as the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board hosted consumer and trade media, and other partners, at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York. It was confirmed that Jet Blue will be launching new daily non-stop service from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) starting on March 30 .

The two culinary festivals, The Bahamas Culinary & Arts Festival and Nassau Paradise Island Wine & Food Festival, were both promoted along with the Nassau Cruise Port’s $300m transformation that includes the addition of a sixth berth, a new terminal building, a Junkanoo museum, event and entertainment space, a 3,500-person amphitheatre, a living coral exhibit, local stores and food and beverage facilities.

The Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board’s update comes after Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister and minister of tourism, investments and aviation, said on Monday that January 2023’s tourism arrivals were some 210,000 ahead of comparatives from 2019’s “banner year” as The Bahamas bids to “meet or exceed” 20 percent growth targets.

He told the House of Assembly during the mid-year Budget debate that visitor numbers for the first month of the year were some 33 percent ahead of that pre-COVID performance.

“In terms of arrivals, we see that in 2022, the numbers were up 233 percent over 2021 and we achieved the seven million visitor mark but fell just shy of 2019,” Mr Cooper said. “To understand the gravity of the seven million mark, note that it has only happened once before in the history of The Bahamas. We are targeting 20 percent growth in tourism for 2023, and we have every reason to believe we are going to meet and or exceed that target.”

Describing 2019 as a “banner year for tourism” with over 7.2m visitors, Mr Cooper added: “When we look at what is happening in 2023, we are shattering 2022 numbers and 2019 numbers. That’s good news. What is even better news is that we saw nearly one million visitors to The Bahamas in the first month of this year.

“I’ll repeat that; you may hear me repeat a few things today. In January, we saw nearly one million visitors to The Bahamas. For context, in January of 2023 we saw 846,000 visitors. That number was 300,000 in January 2022. That is a 166 percent increase from January 2022 to January 2023.

“When we look at 2019; remember that was the banner year, we saw 636,881 air and sea arrivals. January 2023 is a 33 percent increase over 2019 and this trend is holding throughout the islands.” The deputy prime minister yesterday said there had been a 400 percent rise in sea arrivals for Grand Bahama, with “momentum growing” ahead of the Carnival cruise port being completed next year.

Departure tax collections have increased with the growth in visitor arrivals following their COVID-induced interruption, with Mr Cooper saying: “For the first six months of this fiscal year, departure tax collections totaled $71.5m, an improvement of $45m or 85 percent over the prior year.

“In the first half of the year, we collected 73.7 percent of the Budget target for departure tax. Beyond arrivals in 2022, room revenues, average daily rates, overall occupancies and spending by cruise visitors are all up.”