The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business 
Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

TOURISM officials are targeting more than 225,000 stopover arrivals for Grand Bahama in the next 15 months, the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general telling Tribune Business that a new airlift programme would be implemented to coincide with the reopening of the Reef Village property at the Grand Lucayan.

That initiative, David Johnson said, would not compete with the airlift expected to be generated by the Sunwing Travel Group, whose affiliate Blue Diamond Hotels and Resorts will operate the 503-room Reef Village property.

“We want to move very quickly back to over 225,000 air stopover visitors, and then go from that base. We are about 60,000 air stopover visitors below where we would like to be. That’s our goal in the next 15 months, to get back over 225,000 and move towards the 300,000 air stopover arrivals within the next two-and-a-half years,” said Mr Johnson.

Regarding the Reef property and the Sunwing Travel Group’s airlift arrangement, Mr Johnson said:”We have a lot of details to work out. A lot has to do with creating a balance between what they bring and what is there. They are there to help fill the gap.

“We are not going to put seats in there to compete with them. Right now the primary focus is getting the hotel open, and we have a lot to do in a short period of time. It is scheduled to re-open sometime in the first five months of next year, at which time we would have the new airlift programme restructured with the right partners to make it work.”

Mr Johnson said Bahamasair was not being ruled out, having taken over the Vision Air airlift before.

“Grand Bahama has shown an increase in airlift through this year. I think it’s been on the order of 14 per cent, almost the fastest growth year-over-year in the Bahamas, but it’s a much smaller base,” Mr Johnson said.

“That was the impact of the Vision Air programme and other programmes that we did. We are not where we would like to be in terms of having a sustainable tourism product with a sustainable volume of travellers, as well as the right rates and we’re working towards that.”

He added: “In the last 12-25 months we have moved Grand Bahama cruise tourism from the neighbourhood of 500,000 to 900,000, and that’s a significant jump, but we are not happy with where we have gone with air arrivals.

“It’s still anemic, and getting the property opened up and adding more lift is the key to turning it around.

“That’s a 2013 target for us. We are now getting ready to put the wheels in motion to achieve that. Grand Bahama dipped to a low of under 160,000 air stopover visitors. We don’t measure our success in seats. It’s stopover visitors that bring money. Empty seats don’t bring one dime into the economy. We don’t want to have too many seats of the airlines to pull out, saying the seats are empty.”