The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas is "focused on closing the gap" created by a ten to 11 percent fall-off in the forward visitor bookings pace for the key 2019-2020 winter season, a Cabinet minister revealed yesterday.

Dionisio D'Aguilar, pictured, minister of tourism and aviation, told Tribune Business that the booking pace for a period in which hotels and tourism-related businesses earn the bulk of their annual profits "looks softer than usual" due to the continued fall-out from Hurricane Dorian's devastation of Abaco and Grand Bahama.

Pledging that the Ministry of Tourism was "bringing our marketing assets" to bear on the situation, Mr D'Aguilar said he was still "very" confident that the gap between current and prior year bookings would narrow given that it was only mid-November.

Suggesting that this provides sufficient time to make inroads into the decline, the minister conceded that The Bahamas faces "a big step it needs to climb" in clawing back a drop-off he described as "perfectly understandable" given that Dorian had effectively taken Abaco - with its important second home and vacation rental market - offline for many months to come.

Disclosing that Abaco and Grand Bahama accounted for almost 200,000 annual stopover visitors between them, Mr D'Aguilar said it was unlikely that The Bahamas would be able to fully replace that business by attracting more tourists to the islands not impacted by Dorian.

"As we enter into the New Year, and we're still over a month away from that, the bookings are looking softer than usual," the tourism minister admitted to Tribune Business. "We recognise that, and our bringing our marketing resources and assets to close some of the gap that has developed.

"We're not in as good a position as last year but that's perfectly understandable because of the news coverage that The Bahamas received in September. Obviously a lot of the travelling public are in wait and see mode with respect to The Bahamas, and wanted to get the all-clear and see how things look...

"We know about it now and are very much focused on closing the gap, which is around 10-11 percent. That's looking at it from the middle of November." Mr D'Aguilar confirmed that these figures related to the forward bookings pace for the January-April 2020 period, which represents the peak winter tourism season that generates the income hotels and others rely on to carry them through the year.

Attributing the fall-off to Abaco's loss, as well as Dorian's impact on Grand Bahama, Mr D'Aguilar added: "If you delve somewhat into the numbers, one naturally assumes that the islands not impacted are probably doing alright and people are planning to go to them.

"But the whole of Abaco, and Grand Bahama, are not in our inventory stock any more. It's hard to replace that. Abaco was a large second homeowner market. You're trying to replace a very loyal customer base that goes to a special island year over year.

"To replace that growth in stopover visitors, we have to attract more stopover visitors to islands that were not impacted [by Dorian]. The beautiful thing is we now know this is going to be an issue, so it gives us time to address it. Hopefully we will be successful, but it's a big step we need to climb. It's quite high."

Mr D'Aguilar said Abaco had generated 120,000 stopover visitors in 2018, and Grand Bahama another 75,000, meaning that they accounted for almost 200,000 of the higher-spending tourist category.

Speaking from Canada, where he and Ministry of Tourism officials have teamed with the resort and wider industry to promote The Bahamas from coast-to-coast, Mr D'Aguilar said he was anticipating "single digit" growth in Canadian stopover visitors from December onwards.

This, he added, will reverse the Dorian-induced year-over-year declines suffered in September and October from a market that produces some 7 percent of this nation's annual stopover tourists.

"In 2018, stopover visitors from Canada were up 14 percent," Mr D'Aguilar told Tribune Business, "and up to the end of August they were up another 10 percent. We were down 15 percent in September, and another 5 percent in October. Given our Forward Keys indicators from Canada we're expecting single-digit growth from December onwards."

Apart from twice daily airlift from Toronto, the major Canadian source market for The Bahamas, via Air Canada and WestJet, this nation is also receiving four and one flights per week from Calgary and Vancouver, respectively.

"The numbers [from Canada] have been growing just as quickly as from the US, which is why they're staying at 7 percent, but the number of physical visitors is constantly growing," Mr D'Aguilar added.

He said the joint public-private sector promotional effort had delivered the message 'that close to 90 percent of our tourism infrastructure is back up and running or was never impacted". The minister said they had also been educating the Canadian public, travel industry operators and media "about the diversity" of The Bahamas and this nation's ability to offer experiences not affected by Dorian.

"We're really trying to put The Bahamas front and centre of those people in the travel industry who influence where persons take their vacation," Mr D'Aguilar explained. "Everybody that attends one of our presentations emerges with a far better understanding of the state of affairs in the country, and they are very impressed with the quality of our presentation and marketing campaign."

He described the Vancouver leg of the trip as "very successful", and both the Ministry of Tourism and private sector were now waiting to see if it translates into increased business.