The Tribune

• Loss of 1,200 rooms ‘hampers how far we can grow’
• Shortage drives ‘unheard of’ 95% March occupancy
• Airlines seeking to ‘up-gauge’ for summer’s demand

Nassau and Paradise Island hotels will “soon reach the point where we can’t take anyone else”, a senior tourism executive has warned, with room shortages driving “unheard of” March occupancies.

Joy Jibrilu, Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board’s (NPIPB) chief executive, told Tribune Business that the destination’s loss of an estimated 1,200 hotel rooms due to closures and demolitions following the COVID-19 pandemic “hampers how far we can grow” and meet still-robust demand for the destination.

While this has enabled resorts that have remained open, or re-opened, to enjoy extremely strong bookings and business volumes, she explained that the room inventory shortage means The Bahamas’ major tourism market can “only grow to where we are” currently.

Mrs Jibrilu, in a recent interview with this newspaper, said the restricted hotel room supply meant that some Nassau and Paradise Island properties enjoyed average occupancy rates of 95 percent for a March that also included the peak Easter holiday weekend with others “sold out”. Average hotel occupancy rates for 2023 among open properties were also boosted to 74.7 percent compared to 67 percent in 2019.

“We’re 1,200 rooms short or below where we would have been in 2018 and 2019,” Mrs Jibrilu explained. “What that does, the reality is that it restricts or hampers how far we can grow. Unless we have additional inventory and additional rooms, we can only grow to where we are.

“I say that in the context of where we ended 2023, with 74.7 percent hotel occupancies on average for the whole year. If we compare that to, I think it was probably 67 percent in 2019, we’re soon going to reach the point where we can’t take anyone else...

“March would have been a great example of that where we had some hotels with occupancies of 95 percent, which is unheard of, and some were sold out.” While Airbnbs and vacation rentals have helped to fill the void, and pick up some of the slack, Nassau’s existing hotel room inventory is in danger of being maxed out without fresh investment that expands existing or develops new resort products.

The now-demolished Melia Nassau Beach Resort’s 694 rooms, and the closure of Atlantis’ Beach Towers property for redevelopment into the Somewhere Else concept, are among the room inventory that has - at least for the moment - been lost. The British Colonial, which Mrs Jibrilu said “did so well over the Spring period”, has helped fill some of the gap by restoring nearly 300 rooms to circulation.

The Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board chief executive said there is expected to be no let-up in the momentum of the destination, and that of the wider Bahamas, with airlines already examining whether they have to add services or increase the size of their planes on routes to this nation.

And airline seat capacity to Nassau/Paradise Island for March 2024 increased by 23 percent year-over-year to average 7,558 seats per day. “The good news with airlift, and I say this and am genuine when I say it, is that airlines look for where business is good,” Mrs Jibrilu said. “When they see demand for a particular destination they will direct airlift there because it’s in their best interests as well.

“We are doing really well from airlift point of view. I attended the Routes conference in Bogota and met with 20 existing airline partners as well as potential new partners, and everybody indicated that The Bahamas is doing very well. From an airlift perspective, we are an important destination.

“I don’t have the airlines in front of me, but for a number of them they made clear they are pulling back from some routes because they don’t make sense, but Nassau without a doubt is such a great destination so they will do everything to partner with and support us,” she added.

“At the moment, I can say airlift is absolutely where it should be for our needs. We are all watching it. I share the data with our airline partners, and all the indications are - as they look at the forward data for the summer period - that they are already saying they have to up-gauge the aircraft or add services. That’s coming up for the summer months. It’s all taken us by surprise in a good way.”

With the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) predicting that 2024 will be “a record-breaking year” for global tourism, Mrs Jibrilu said it will be no different for The Bahamas. “We can expect this level of interest and demand to continue if we continue doing what we’re supposed to do,” she told Tribune Business.

“We’re coming off a very strong March month, and it’s not just Easter but Easter and the Spring Break season. I think most of our members would have seen the highest occupancy rates they’ve ever seen for the month of March.

“That’s across the board for Nassau and Paradise Island. That’s the big hotels and small hotels. Without exception they’ve matched expectations, what they would have projected in their budgets, if not gone above it. I can say, we can say, for the majority of them they have enjoyed very good occupancy rates. All our partners have expressed extreme satisfaction with what they saw over March.”

Mrs Jibrilu said that while the disruption caused by the US and Canadian crime alerts is now firmly behind The Bahamas, “we pray it continues” so that the tourism industry goes “from strength to strength”.

She added: “I think it is fair to say that everybody, both private and public sector, has done a good job in telling the travelling public how, if you visit Nassau and Paradise Island, and The Bahamas generally, this is as safe as any other big city. The data shows it’s a relatively safe destination.... It’s fair to say that’s behind us, but we pray it continues this way so we can continue to go from strength to strength.”