The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE Tribune Business Reporter nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net TOURISM officials said yesterday they were pleased with delegate responses to the Routes Americas forum, telling Tribune Business the exposure generated by the event would have a substantial long-term impact on this destination. The 5th annual Routes Americas conference, the top airline industry seminar, which was held at the Atlantis resort, brought together key players in the airline and airport industry responsible for developing new routes to, from and within the Americas. Minister of Tourism and Aviation, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, said the delegates were impressed with the quality of what the Bahamas has to offer as a destination. "We are very happy with the turn out. I think the delegates see the Bahamas now as a much more attractive destination than they ever could have before this conference. They were quite impressed, certainly with the phenomenal infrastructural works going on, and the increasing number of air seats. They now understand that the Bahamas is more substantial than Nassau/Paradise Island," Minister Vanderpool-Wallace said. "I think there is a favourable match between what they do and what we have to offer. I think the long-term potential is quite substantial." Director-general of tourism, David Johnson, told Tribune Business that the 15 appointments local tourism and airport executives had were extremely productive. "The appointments have been very productive. We had about 15 meetings and they all went extremely well. The delegates are all expressing their surprise at the amount of improvements to the destination. I think we achieved what we wanted to achieve, and that is to successfully showcase our destination. The airlines are perhaps more important to us than any other medium," Mr Johnson said. Routes executives said this year's forum hosted more delegates than ever before, with 400 airline, airport and tourism authority delegates from over 42 different countries. This year's forum also saw the largest number of airlines to attend Routes America, with around 60 carriers.