The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net FAMILY Island air arrivals recovered to grow year-over-year by 4 per cent in December 2011, according to a report by the Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, which noted that Hurricane Irene's August arrival brought an end to earlier expansion trends. The report, obtained by Tribune Business, noted that in January 2011, total arrivals to the whole Bahamas were up by 15 per cent. However, the main success was in sea arrivals, with air arrivals down by 11 per cent and sea arrivals up 22 per cent. The report noted that air arrivals to the Family Islands were up by 12 per cent during the month of January 2011, with much of that growth driven by the Sandals Spa and Golf Resort at Emerald Bay in Exuma. Air arrivals to the Family islands were "in the black" for much of the year, but this was interrupted in August when Hurricane Irene arrived. "Air arrivals did not gain momentum until December 2011, when they once again climbed back into the 'black' with a growth of 4 per cent over the same period in 2010," the Ministry report said. "[But] in August air arrivals were down by 5 per cent. Air arrivals did not regain momentum until December 2011, when they once again climbed into the "black" with a growth of 4 per cent over the same period of 2010." Minister of Tourism and Aviation, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, told Tribune Business: "We were quite happy to see the air arrivals to the Family Islands go up, because in many cases what that means is more non-stop services to the Family Islands. "One thing we are always very conscious of is that the increase in arrivals to the Family Islands can sometimes come at the expense of reduced arrivals to Nassau, because a lot of people would have been recorded as Nassau arrivals originally if they had to fly through Nassau to get to the Family Islands." He added: We hope to continue to see growth. We want to see more non-stop service to the Family Islands, even while we continue to grow one-stop services to Nassau which, obviously, for very many places is going to be necessary because you are not going to have non-stop service to every Family Island. So it's really a combination of both that's going to make a difference." By the end of 2011, air and sea arrivals to the Bahamas climbed to 5.6 million, up by 6.3 per cent. With regard to stopover visitors, the report noted that the US was not the only major supplier of stopover business to the Bahamas in 2011. Canada, the 10th largest economy in the world based on GDP, was the second largest supplier of stopover business to the Bahamas. Stopover arrivals from Canada to the Bahamas, which were up 11.5 per cent in 2010, jumped an additional 2 per cent in 2011. By 2011, stopover arrivals from Canada to the Bahamas were the highest they have been since 1980. The third biggest supplier of stopover business to the Bahamas in 2011 was Europe. In 2011, stopover arrivals from the UK, the biggest supplier of stopover business to the Bahamas from Europe, increased slightly but did not reach the pre-recession and pre-Euro crisis levels.