The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE Association of Bahamas Marinas (ABM) president yesterday said the industry was in “go-slow mode” due to the approaching hurricane season peak and issues with COVID-19 related entrance protocols.

Peter Maury told Tribune Business that the boating industry was “definitely not” surging into the fall amid the lingering global pandemic, adding that the sector was missing out on a “big chunk of the middle business”.

Despite Walkers Cay marina reopening to boating traffic over the weekend, he added: “Everything has slowed down. The hurricane season’s here and we’re all in go-slow mode. This time of year it always slows down but not like this. This is bad. Usually we do in the high 30s and low 40s [for marina occupancy], but probably now most people are in the teens.”

Mr Maury explained that “the middle business” were boats that are between 30 feet and 50 feet in length, or the “centre consoles”. He described them as essential because they “run around”, with their occupants staying in hotels and generating most of the marina industry’s traffic.

“With the middle business gone, a lot of that is just going to stay in Florida, so they are not coming to The Bahamas because of the entries and stuff like that - the difficulties with getting into a marina and then getting into a hotel and entrance processes and things like that,” Mr Maury said.

“People aren’t leaving their boats here and flying out, and then flying back in and all of like how it used to be. I get it. The truth is if they go home, they don’t know if they are coming back, and they may get stuck in their own country. So their trips are longer, but they’re not leaving their boats here typically like they used to.”

Having an appreciation for the unpredictability of the COVID-19 pandemic and what it has done to the travel and leisure business, “nobody can blame The Bahamas any more” because the pandemic is still hitting larger markets.

Mr Maury added: “The US is looking to change their rules and everything else. So we just have to take it one day at a time. What they would do is they’ll come in, spend time here and then they’ll go back and get ready for another trip or whatever.”