The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net’

A SENIOR Andros manager in the Ministry of Tourism is “excited” for the future of the industry and believes community based tourism is where we need to head.

Peter Douglas, senior manager of the Ministry of Tourism in North Andros –speaking at the Andros Business Outlook yesterday – said: “I am excited for the future of tourism in Andros. We are truly awake and going to take our place in the future of the tourism industry in The Bahamas.”

Mr Douglas said “community based tourism” initiatives being planned for the island which will bring tourists more closely to the residents of Andros.

He said: “The tourism industry has changed after COVID-19 and has presented us with this new challenge of functioning in the industry within such an unstable and scary situation.

 “Moving forward will be a part of the future of the development of the Andros tourism industry based on all of our outdoor activities the island has to offer.

“We opened up in November last year and we just saw the Andros tourism industry continue to climb and continue growing and came close to the numbers of pre-COVID-19 in our occupancies as of July of this year. I think we are going to be pretty close by the end of August. So this means that the Family Islands, particularly this family island of Andros, is very resilient.

Having “bounced back quickly” from the full tourism industry closure of 2020, Mr Douglas added: “Part of our tourism packages making us the focus for the community based tourism is the fact that we are an island that is still rural and has a rich cultural heritage and a rich craft heritage. We have a large protected ecosystem and it makes us perfect for the community based tourism industry clusters that we want to develop here in Andros. We have a rich festival and culture and these all add up to the aspects that make us a rich destination.”

Cautioning that while things are going well in Andros now coming out of the COVID-19 economic shutdown of 2020, he said the island must now “redefine” itself to suit today’s traveller.

“We have to do a little back pedalling and redefine and reposition ourselves and also do some healing of our market and also revitalisation of all of our stakeholders,” Mr Douglas said.

Just how the island redefines itself comes down to how financially fit stakeholders are to reposition themselves in this new post COVID-19 tourism era, which means starting marketing campaigns that marks the island of Andros as safe for tourists to visit will be critical.

Leaning on the “Clean and Pristine” certification programme run by the Ministry of Tourism leading up to the industry’s reopening, Mr Douglas said: “We have trained all of our taxi drivers and our hoteliers. They all have been online or who couldn’t get online, came into the office following protocol standards and they all trained.

“I think we need to redo this training so that everybody could still be reminded on how important it is to stay within the protocols to do business in this new era of COVID.”