Bahamas sees hike in cruise visitors

By ALISON LOWE
Tribune Business Reporter

The first ten months of 2010 saw Grand Bahama experience a 40 per cent hike in visitor arrivals, according to the Central Bank of the Bahamas, which also highlighted increases of 8.3 per cent and 14.9 per cent for New Providence and the Family Islands respectively.
Grand Bahama's boost came "entirely" because of the 55.1 per cent rise in the number of cruise visitors coming to the island in the period leading up to October 2010.
Meanwhile, New Providence's increase was made up of a 4.1 per cent rise in stopover visitors and a 10.8 per cent jump in cruise arrivals.
The Family Islands saw a higher 13.5 per cent rise in stopover visitors and 15.1 per cent rise in sea arrivals.
The Central Bank's December 2010 report suggested that based on these figures, tourism sector output had "improved steadily".
Hotels in New Providence and Paradise Island reported that revenues rose 6.2 per cent year-over-year, while average occupancy rates increased by 1.7 per cent to 62.6 per cent and average daily room rates rose by 1.9 per cent of $231.96.

GB tourism performs 'fairly well' despite air arrivals decrease

Tourists in Port Lucaya

FREEPORT - Despite a significant decrease in air arrivals in 2010, Grand Bahama's tourism industry has performed "fairly well," according to officials.
Tourism officials reported that the drop-off in air arrivals had a significant impact on the overall tourism figures for Grand Bahama, which fell short of the one million visitor mark.
However, Tourism Director General David Johnson noted that the increase in cruise arrivals and cruise stop-over arrivals has made up for the loss in air arrivals.
"Given the state of the industry overall, I can say that Grand Bahama had a fair performance," he reported to the media.
"We are not celebrating profits and any strong growth, but Grand Bahama has survived and been able to hold its own by holding the industry at current levels under very difficult circumstances."
The tourism executive said that demand drives airlifts, and the Grand Bahama tourism product has not been competitive enough to create a turnaround.
Mr Johnson told ZNS radio that his ministry is now seeking to come up with a strategy to differentiate Grand Bahama from other islands in the Bahamas by marketing it as an "all inclusive" destination.
"The all inclusive concept seems to be thriving. It is one area we should continue to explore.
"If you can imagine an all inclusive offer in Grand Bahama where (persons) are not confined to one hotel as in Jamaica and other places, and are able to roam between 10 to 20 restaurants at various properties and facilities through the island, that, I think, would be a strong differentiation for Grand Bahama.
"And all of the properties would benefit tremendously from it if they can execute it well enough.
"We are resuming our efforts to come up with a very effective execution of that strategy, that is the most immediate task we are taking on for 2011," he said.

Bahamas sees record arrival numbers

Randy Holmes of Canada will be recognized as the country's 5 millionth visitor. Pictured (from left) are Marilyn Fernander of Bahamas Customs, Randy Holmes his sister Liana Holmes, and Ministry of Tourism & Aviation representatives Betty Bethel and Terrance Roberts. (Photo: Andre Cartwright/Ministry of Tourism)

FREEPORT, Grand Bahama -- The Bahamas recorded 5 million visitors Saturday for only the second time in history, and the country is on track to receive the largest number of visitors in its history as well.
Minister of Tourism & Aviation Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace announced the milestone Sunday as he explained a process to recognize and award the 5 millionth visitor. Since the Bahamas has as many as 20 ports of entry into the country, and the arrivals process is not fully automated, it is impossible to tell exactly which visitor became the 5 millionth, Minister Vanderpool-Wallace said. As a result, the Ministry of Tourism & Aviation initiated a process to identify a person to be recognized as the 5 millionth visitor.

Throughout the Bahamas, arriving visitors were selected as candidates to be the 5 millionth visitor on Saturday – the day when statistics showed that the 5 millionth tally would be achieved. Through random drawing, Randy Holmes of Vancouver, British Colombia. Mr. Holmes and his wife were selected when their American Eagle flight arrived in Grand Bahama at 11:45am Saturday.

“We expect that by the end of this year, we will be beyond the numbers we had the first time around, and we are delighted to have this year, the largest number of visitors ever,” Minister Vanderpool-Wallace said.

Although the record number of arrivals has been achieved, the Bahamas still has much work to do to ensure that economic conditions are sustainable, Minister Vanderpool-Wallace said. He said most of the growth was in cruise arrivals. When looking at tourism development, destinations concentrate on growing high-spending stopover visitors, he said.

Minister of Tourism & Aviation Vincent Vanderpool Wallace selects Randy Holmes as the 5 millionth visitor of The Islands of The Bahamas for 2010. Also pictured are Basil Smith, chief communications officer of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (left), and Raymond Francis, executive director of the Bahamas Out Islands Promotion Board (right). (Photo: Derek Smith)

Minister Vanderpool-Wallace said that total arrivals by the end of the year are expected to be about 14 – 15 percent ahead of last year’s total. Stopover visitors would have grown about four or four and a half percent, he said.

However, Minister Vanderpool-Wallace also pointed out that 70 percent of cruises to the Bahamas only visit the Bahamas and no other destination. He said that this was an important source of business for many small businesses, and the healthy cruise arrivals are also providing more business opportunities for Bahamians, especially in tours and attractions.

Move to boost Bahamas tourism

By MEGAN REYNOLDS

Tribune Staff Reporter

LINKING the Bahamas to the world and the islands to one another is the key focus for the development of the country's largest industry, Minister of Tourism and Aviation Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace said yesterday.

As promotions of the Bahamas in the $5.8 million 2009 Miss Universe pageant showing the islands as a chain of unique islands will be worthless if travel cannot be provided at competitive prices.

The current cost of air travel is so high customers can fly from Miami to Montego Bay, Puerto Rico or Las Vegas for the same price as a ticket to Grand Bahama, Mr Vanderpool-Wallace said yesterday, But a new promotion is advertising tickets to Grand Bahama from $19 one-way, and rooms at Our Lucaya are available from just $35 per night.And new aviation routes can bring up to 293,320 more airline passengers to Nassau next year, and 39,520 to Grand Bahama, that is a total of 383,280 more visitors flying into the country.

Plans are in place to reduce the cost of airfares by dropping airport landing and handling fees, and the $400 million renovation of the Lynden Pindling International Airport will make it an efficient centre where people can move easily to the Out Islands, the Minister said.

He added: "It's very important for us to get aggressive in terms of competing with what's out there.

"Affordable accessible air service is absolutely critical.

"Infrastructure is critically important. We have to put the infrastructure in place to make sure that the promotion works. "Imagine Paradise Island without the bridges? If we had to go by boats and the boats only go every six hours?

"Each of the airline flights is like a bridge, and if it was $1 all of a sudden we would all go. On the day we do that I am confident we are going to see some extraordinary changes."

Mr Vanderpool-Wallace is also keen to lower rates of accommodation and travel in the Family Islands to encourage domestic tourism, and he said that will follow when the number of visitors increases.

Tourists visiting Grand Bahama fell by 27.5 per cent last year, and by 24.9 per cent in the Family Islands in 2008, while air arrivals to the Bahamas dropped by 13.8 per cent. Keeping the tourism industry afloat during the recession are the cruise lines which offer affordable package deals from a fast increasing number of ports opening in the United States.

Around 70 per cent of cruises from these ports on the east coast of the US sail exclusively to the Bahamas, and Nassau has around two million cruise passengers dock at its port each year, with 19.9 per cent of visitors to Nassau and Paradise Island arriving by cruise ship.

Mr Vanderpool-Wallace is keen to net the potential revenue presented by these stop-over visitors by developing downtown Nassau and increasing opening hours for shops and restaurants.

He said: "We're not in the business of counting heads, what's most important is stop over visitor numbers.

"The total visitor number is irrelevant because we want to take more about the economy of the Bahamas rather than head count."

However the number of stopover visitors also fell last year and by the end of January had dropped by 63,000, with 33,000 less in the Family Islands and 25,988 fewer in Grand Bahama.

There are no solid projections of visitor numbers for the upcoming winter months because it is still not clear what shape the recession will take, or how long it will last, Mr Vanderpool-Wallace said.

In the meanwhile the ministry will continue to work behind the scenes, by opening a 1-800-Bahamas call centre, bringing in film crews to document the different islands, encouraging sports teams of all kinds to compete in the country, and working on reducing energy costs to be more competitive with other destinations in the region.

They Get it in the Bahamas.com

I am a big fan of great marketing efforts, and I wanted to share one that I find to be exemplary. The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has one of the most comprehensive and well-targeted integrated marketing efforts I’ve seen, encompassing direct marketing and traditional advertising to create a strong integrated marketing communications program.
To make it even easier for people to remember how to find information online, they use the generic domain name Bahamas.com – it doesn’t really get any better than that. The Bahamas Islands are a brand, and the Ministry of Tourism leverages their brand online nearly flawlessly.
Read the original article here:
They Get it In The Bahamas.com
Please take the time to also read the comments posted under the original article
here's one I cut & Pasted


"Jay Lohmann

June 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
gravatar

Bahamas has been way ahead of the curve since the mid-90s. Our advertising agency worked with the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism years ago and they proved themselves to be a very smart bunch. Glad to that they (and their current ad agency) are getting the recognition they deserve for their current efforts.

Their first site:
http://www.tagteamcreative.com/portfolio/hotel-travel.html

J. A. Lohmann
214.679.9673
––––––––––––––
Owner
http://www.InvestInURLs.com
Colorado
––––––––––––––
Twitter.com/FreelanceNation"