The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

The Bahamas must wait for the "negative headwinds" created by Hurricane Dorian to die down before it can start "remarketing" itself as a tourism destination, a Cabinet minister says.

Dionisio D'Aguilar, pictured, minister of tourism and aviation, said international coverage of the devastation inflicted by the category five storm had forced The Bahamas to "rethink" all its tourism marketing and efforts to promote other parts of the country as "open for business".

He added: "We just have to wait until the headwinds of negative international news die down in order for us to start remarketing The Bahamas as a destination still open for business and not totally destroyed by the storm.

"You can't help but think about the devastation now when you think about The Bahamas now. This is the biggest obstacle to our marketing efforts. We just have to wait for this headwind to die down in order to get our message out there effectively."

Mr D'Aguilar continued: "We've had to, of course, rethink all of our marketing programmes considering that The Bahamas is featuring daily in the major network news in a negative light.

"What we've done is we've utilised our various tourism assets as much as possible in the meantime in order to educate persons looking to travel to The Bahamas that we have 16 major destinations and that 14 are still available for business.

"For example, we've gotten Lenny Kravitz to appear on CNN to talk about how many of the other islands in The Bahamas were not hit by Dorian and to encourage persons to continue to book their vacations in The Bahamas in order to help out with the recovery efforts.

"We've also gotten the Atlantis resorts' world-renowned Chef (Jose) Andres, who also appeared on CNN and various other international media outlets, to let the world know that The Bahamas is still open for business tourism-wise and not all has been destroyed. What we will continue to do is sensitise those of our assets who have the greatest reach to spread our message."

Mr D'Aguilar said the only good fortune enjoyed by The Bahamas was that Hurricane Dorian struck at the slowest part of the country's tourism season. When asked by Tribune Business how the sector has been faring, and how overall bookings have been affected by Dorian, Mr D'Aguillar said: "We can see with Expedia.com that there has been a tremendous decrease in bookings.

"Thankfully we are in the slowest period of the year in any event, and most people make their travel plans about 45 days ahead of their expected arrival date, so we're getting prepared for the next big travel holiday for Americans, which is Thanksgiving in November."

"You have to know exactly when to pull the trigger to get the best bang for the buck. You simply can't fight the major news networks. Luckily for us, the ministry knows the strategy and plan for hurricane events like this. They have been through this before with previous storms, so I have confidence with our team in preparation for the road ahead for the sector."