The Tribune

By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

JITNEY drivers are spending up to $150 per day on fuel, while boat tour operators in Exuma face an extra $200 in costs per vessel, as soaring fuel prices squeeze profits, force charter fee surcharges and threaten to price customers out of excursions.

Corvell Colebrooke, general secretary of the Bahamas Unified Bus Drivers Union (BUDU), said operators are struggling to keep pace with rising fuel and maintenance costs.

“We’re in a bad state right now,” Mr Colebrooke said. “Very, very bad state. The high price of fuel, and it’s not only fuel because diesel oil is skyrocketing. Parts. It takes diesel to bring the parts in over the sea. So everything right now is high, high, high.”

Mr Colebrooke said drivers are seeking relief through lower fuel prices and the removal of VAT on fuel as fares have failed to keep pace with their expenses. The Government approved a 25-cent increase in adult bus fares in 2024, bringing the standard fare to $1.50, but the union has continued to press for further adjustments.

Mr Colebrooke said the increase had largely been swallowed by higher fuel costs, leaving drivers with little room to make a profit. “You are operating on a bus where you are spending $140 to $150 a day on fuel, and another $15, $16 to buy oil,” he said. “That can’t work. There’s no profit in this.”

The pressures extend beyond public transportation to the boating and excursion industry, where operators are grappling with rising gas and diesel prices, reduced margins and customers becoming increasingly sensitive to tour costs.

Kate Nottage, first mate for My Bahamas Private Tours & Excursions, said rising gasoline prices are significantly reducing profits, forcing operators to either increase their charges or absorb the additional expenses.

“We spend a lot of money on fuel, but we’ve definitely seen those numbers go way up recently, and they just continue to climb,” Ms Nottage said. “Your fuel is definitely not stretching as far.”

She said even a $250 top-up seemed to buy substantially less fuel than it did before, while operators serving the Family Islands faced particular pressure because of the volume required to reach those destinations.

Ms Nottage said some operators have raised prices by at least 10 to 15 percent or more to offset higher fuel costs, but those increases are coming at a difficult time for the tourism sector.

“With it being slow season, that hits even harder because people are already not necessarily coming here to spend as much during the season,” she said. “The rise in prices, it really is costing people tours and costing people business and their income.”

Although her business has benefited from repeat customers, Ms Nottage said the traditionally slow part of the tourism season has been particularly difficult, with rising fuel prices adding another obstacle for operators trying to maintain bookings.

Ray Lightbourn, principal of Exuma Water Sports, said higher fuel prices are costing his business an additional $200 per day for each boat in operation. He said the company typically has four or five boats operating much of the time, although it did not run its entire fleet every day.

Fuel in Exuma, he said, is about $8.53 per gallon. He added that increasing tour prices is not a straightforward option because operators are competing with unlicensed Airbnb owners offering tours.

“It’s not that easy to raise prices because we got so many illegal Airbnbs doing tours, and we got to compete with them, unfortunately, because nobody enforces in Exuma,” Mr Lightbourn said.

Rather than immediately passing the higher costs on to customers, he said his operation is absorbing the pressure through reduced profits while maintaining its staffing levels.

“We haven’t cut back on anything. Just going with the flow right now,” he said. “I can’t really cut back on the staff. We need our staff. We cut back on our profits. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Mr Lightbourn said the business plans to continue operating under current conditions for at least another month before reassessing its position, while hoping fuel prices fall.

He warned that higher tour prices could also put excursions beyond the reach of families travelling on tighter budgets, further limiting the industry’s ability to recover its rising costs.

Michael Dillon, owner of Abaco Yacht and Charter Services, said fuel prices are already affecting bookings, with some customers cancelling trips because of the expense.

“We’ve definitely had people cancel because of the cost of fuel,” Mr Dillon said. “I know it’s definitely hitting our bottom line because we have charters where fuel is included. So we’ve had to put surcharges on the charters to cover the fuel cost.”

Mr Dillon said the business is also receiving fewer bookings as customers weigh the cost of chartering a vessel against their travel budgets. Fuel in Abaco, he said, costs about $7.80 per gallon.

“If you’re in Nassau, you have no idea,” he said. “You guys are living cheap.”