The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Visiting yachts/boats who paid their charter fees via the Association of the Bahamas Marinas (ABM) portal spent $20m on “just consumable” purchases in the local economy, its president says.

Peter Maury told Tribune Business that data obtained from the EZPay portal, where vessels pay their 4 percent charter fee, showed it last year collected $2.389m for the Public Treasury from charters worth a collective $55m.

With boats having to confirm the value of their charter when paying the fees, Mr Maury said that - based on the Advance Provisioning Allowance (APA) - they had collectively spent close to $20m while in The Bahamas on groceries, fuel and other provisions.

“When you pay 100 percent for the charter, they take 25-30 percent of the value of the charter, and that’s the APA,” he explained. “You have to pay the APA. They take that, and the captain stocks the boat, provides the champagne you want, provides the caviar you want, the fuel you need, pays the marina bills and the masseuse out of that.

“Whatever is not spent is returned to the guest... Those charters are booked a year in advance. It’s $55m what we took in for last year. If you take that $55m and multiply it by 0.3, that gives you what they spend on consumables; around $20m.”

Mr Maury argued that data provided on the marina industry, and its economic impact for The Bahamas, is “not a true representation of what this industry brings to the GDP of the country” as it did not capture what guests spent on-shore and during the days while they waited to board.

Suggesting that there were many vacation rental guests who “do a lot of two and three night charters”, the ABM president added: “I think the number of people getting on boats is far higher. The boats stay here. They’re like a house or hotel room. And the boats come back here, sit and wait for the next charter.”

Admitting that December 2021 was “not as good as expected” due to the increased competition from a re-opened Caribbean, and that January and February had been “slow”, Mr Maury added: “Typically in this industry yachts start moving north in the Spring, so hopefully we will have a lot of good bookings in the coming months. Our marina, and the marinas I’ve talked to, everybody has good bookings.”

Visiting boaters were down by 25 percent in 2021 compared to pre-COVID, coming in at 81,171 compared to 108,179 in 2019. However, this represented a 140 percent increase on 2020, more than doubling that year’s 33,880.

“The pandemic did not halt the industry. It slowed it in 2020, but in 2021 it came bouncing back,” Mr Maury said. “Our numbers on entry are still a little soft, but the bigger boats stay here. There’s crew and the people that are on board spend a lot while the boats are here. Fuel is the biggest thing in the business. Boats constantly fuel and buy utilities.

“From a GDP standpoint I don’t think this represents exactly what they are putting back in.... We’re probably not capturing half of what we should be pulling in in charter fees. I told the deputy prime minister we should be doing $1m in charter fees a month, $10m a year.” He added that the ABM portal has now collected up to $3m in charter fees.

Mr Maury, meanwhile, again complained about the long wait that boaters must endure to enter The Bahamas by clearing Customs and Immigration. Besides the 340-strong questionnaire that must be filled out, which typically takes three to four hours, a similar wait is endured upon arrival.

“It’s got to be easier,” he added. “We’re competing against the Caribbean, not each other. It’s got to be easier. It’s not the charter fees, it’s the entry process where they spend three to four hours filling out a document to come into the country. They are so upset with the process. It’s hard to calm them down. We’re still advocating that the entry process become easier.”