The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas' main tourism promotion board yesterday said it had increased its marketing spend by 15 percent to "spike the message" that this nation remains open post-Hurricane Dorian.

Fred Lounsberry, the Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board's chief executive, said its website "conversions" - representing persons who visited it and subsequently booked a Bahamian vacation - had increased by nine percent year-over-year for the first three weeks of October to indicate bookings are on the rebound in time for the peak 2019-2020 winter season.

"Around the first week of October we saw traffic increased to our website," he told Tribune Business. "In most cases all of our efforts are focused through our website. About the last three weeks we saw that our conversions and website activity is up over the last year, with conversions being people who visit our website and are referred to a particular property and booked their vacation.

"We saw our website conversions up by nine percent from last year, with last year being a very, very strong year coming into the holidays. We have also increased our media spend by at least 15 percent from last year. We thought we had to spike the message correctly on The Bahamas being still open for travellers."

Mr Lounsberry added: "Now we are on full blast with our full regular message that we are ready and available for the winter season. We have done a lot of television spots in order to continue to express that Nassau/Paradise island is still open.

"We started television spots on 14 October, and this week we are putting a new creative out there. So, we are moving quickly while continuing to be sensitive about the storm matters. But it really is time to get our normal messaging back in place."

The Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board executive continued: "We talk to airlines pretty frequently and they are telling me the bookings are coming back. All of our partners and properties are engaging the public with us. The timing now is to keep the messaging strong and positive.

"We are cautiously optimistic that we have turned the comer on Hurricane Dorian. We are seeing positive signs that we are back on track. We are keeping vigilant on the marketing; we have no intention on easing up.

"We keep building month-by-month from October to after Easter every season, and this is no different. This is our critical time to be in the marketplace before our competition takes our business from us."

Mr Lounsberry's comments came as Dionisio D'Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, said the 14 percent decline in visitor arrivals for September - the month Dorian struck Abaco and Grand Bahama - were not as bad as expected.

"The numbers are in for September, and we have to say obviously that the number of foreign visitors coming to The Bahamas declined in September by 14 percent. That is significant, but we thought it would have been a lot worse. So we are pleased that it was not as bad as what we had initially thought it would have been," Mr D'Aguilar said.

"As the memory of the hurricane fades from the listening public, especially in the United States, it becomes easier and easier to reengage them on making a vacation to The Bahamas. We are delighted it is not in the news as much any more, as people are now thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and beginning to re-engage in thinking about a holiday in The Bahamas.

"We are engaging a lot more with the media houses. As a country we are engaging with a lot of media houses. I'm about to go on a major tour of all of Canada to re-engage the Canadian public to come to The Bahamas..... The Bahamas is getting a lot of increased travellers from Canada."