The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said he has “cautiously” asked the prime minister to raise The Bahamas’ concerns over US travel advisories when he meets Donald Trump this weekend.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, said there was a “fine line” between raising awareness and creating fear with the advisories issues by the US State Department and its Nassau embassy.

He revealed: “I cautiously asked the prime minister if he could mention to the [US] president that some additional thought could be incorporated into these travel advisories. The purpose of the travel advisory is to create a level of awareness, I get that. The difficulty is you don’t want to create a level of fear. There is a fine line there.”

Dr Hubert Minnis and other Caribbean leaders will meet with Mr Trump on Friday as the US president bids to “counter China’s predatory economic practices” in the region among other issues on his agenda. Potential opportunities for energy investment and security co-operation will also be discussed.

Meanwhile, turning to the Ministry of Tourism’s response to the US travel advisories, Mr D’Aguilar said yesterday: “I think we have managed that process quite well. We have mobile our marketing machinery to dampen the effects of the advisory.

“We need to improve the process by which we deal with those advisories. It incorporates to a degree how it is reported in the local press. They pick it up off the wire and how it’s reported domestically. We need to make sure that when we do report it domestically that the report includes all the research, and has an opinion that may vary from the tenacity of the advisory.”

Mr D’Aguilar had last month expressed dismay over the timing of the US alert, given that it coincided with a peak winter tourism season in which The Bahamas was set for “double digit” stopover arrivals increases for three of 2019’s first four months.

He added ranking The Bahamas alongside countries such as Mexico and Jamaica was unwarranted, and described the language used in the US State Department’s latest advisory as “far too severe” despite giving this nation credit for improvements made to visitor security.

Pledging to “work harder” with the US Embassy and ensure this nation is upgraded to “level one”, the safest designation that the State Department awards foreign countries, Mr D’Aguilar acknowledged: “We have our work cut out for us.”

So-called “level one” nations are those where the US State Department says Americans can “exercise normal precautions” when travelling. The Bahamas, though, is currently “level two”, meaning Americans should “exercise increased caution”.

Mr D’Aguilar last month admitted he was especially concerned about the widespread media coverage that the travel advisory has received in the US, the source market for around 85 percent of The Bahamas’ total visitors, where it has been featured on local TV stations, websites and print media.

A Tampa TV station, Fox 13, even carried quotes from a soon-to-be-visitor to The Bahamas on its website about how she may change her itinerary in response. While not deterred from her vacation, Terris Ross said she was “definitely going to take heed of the warning. And maybe be more aware of my surroundings”. Jet skiing, part of her original plans, was likely to be out.

“Naturally it’s concerning,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business of the elevated level of US media coverage. “It’s surprising that it got as much traction as it did given that certain sections of the verbiage was better this year than it was last year.

“I contend that the verbiage is still too strong, and we’re going to work diligently in softening the verbiage... These travel advisories are very important, and show we must work harder and closer with the US Embassy to ensure that, over time, there’s a continued downward trend in the security of the warnings.

“Our goal should be to go from ‘level two’ to ‘level one’. What do we have to do to do that, given that we have so many tourists. That’s what we will do. We have our work cut out for us, and it involves a number of ministries, not just the minister of tourism and Ministry of Tourism.”

He argued, though, that such travel advisories and warnings of crime needed to be set in that context and reflect the reality on the ground in The Bahamas.

Ed Fields, the Downtown Nassau Partnership (DNP) managing director and Atlantis spokesman, in an Insight column in The Tribune, said the 43 offences recorded against visitors to The Bahamas in 2018 showed there was a 0.00000717 percent chance of tourists becoming a victim of crime.

Elements of the US travel advisory are outdated, as it refers to a shooting incident at the Sand Trap bar on West Bay Street in 2016, which no longer exists. And The Bahamas’ was given a grudging improvement, with Americans now urged to “exercise caution” at the Arawak Cay Fish Fry and in over-the-hill areas “especially at night”, rather than avoid them altogether as previous advisories had recommended.