The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday said The Bahamas must “crawl before it can walk” when it comes to re-entering the tourism market and launching its marketing campaign.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister for tourism and aviation, speaking outside the Cabinet Office, yesterday said the restart of his ministry's promotional efforts had been “slow" in keeping pace with the gradual re-opening of The Bahamas' borders and wider tourism industry.

"We started off mostly online," he said. "You will see that a lot of the hotel properties have been doing their own individual advertising, but we're getting back in the market. The largest source of foreign visitors is through online booking travel agencies. So we do a lot of online advertising.”

Come the New Year, Mr D'Aguilar said the Ministry of Tourism will be moving into traditional television advertisements, and added: “I think we want to crawl before we walk and before we run, and see how it goes. You can't put blinders on and ignore what's happening in the United States.”

Further explaining the rationale for the Ministry of Tourism's phased marketing ramp up, Mr D'Aguilar said he does not want to “barrel in” with limited resources and fail to get the biggest “bang for the buck".

He added that the Government plans to maintain the so-called “bubble strategy” that keeps tourists confined to specific locations, such as their hotels, saying: “They have worked well in the rest of the Caribbean.

“I think everybody wants to control the environment as much as possible. And when they feel comfortable, they'll begin to expand. So that's what they've been doing in the rest of the Caribbean at great success.”

The "bubble strategy" has been criticised by some tourism providers given that it restricts business for those operating outside large resorts. However, Mr D’Aguilar said the major hotels had wanted to open this way so they could better prevent any COVID-19 outbreak among guests and staff.

With Atlantis, Baha Mar, the British Colonial Hilton and Comfort Suites all set to at least partially re-open before Christmas, Mr D'Aguilar said he was “delighted” thousands of hotel workers can now return to work. He added: “This is really a watershed moment. It's great, and it’s wonderful, and we’ve got to really make it work.

“We have to ensure that the foreign visitors, when they come in, have an exceptional experience and really get the engines and the cogs of our tourism industry back to work. After all, that's two thirds of our economy, two-thirds of every job, and 50 percent of our total economic output. So it's very important, given what's happening in the US.”