The Tribune

BY any measure, the Ministry of Tourism’s website, Bahamas.com, is breathtaking. Packed with beautiful beaches, dazzling experiences and perfect people, it is sheer eye candy, promising the best of everything in a sun-kissed destination.

Even the text is exciting: “With 16 major islands, The Bahamas is an unmatched destination, a heart-pounding adventure across 100,000 square miles of the world’s clearest ocean.”

Heart-pounding adventure? Six figures of the world’s clearest ocean - I’m in, who wouldn’t be?

That’s not all.

In the drop-down menu, a section called Island Hopping in The Bahamas promises “When you touch down in The Bahamas, an adventure of 16 islands opens up - Whether you fly in through Nassau, the country’s gateway, or directly into one of the Out Islands, you’ll soon discover that no two islands are alike. Each one offers wildly unique experiences, and they’re all at your fingertips.”

There’s just one problem. Those promising islands are not at your fingertips. Island hopping in The Bahamas doesn’t exist unless you ‘hop’ from Nassau to one island, return to Nassau, probably overnight at a hotel, ‘hop’ again to the next island, return to Nassau, all of which defies the idea of island hopping.

Other than the Abacos and North Eleuthera, both served by ferries, the vast majority of land and sea in The Bahamas remains a disconnected archipelago. Tourism’s promises of “wildly unique experiences - all at your fingertips” is more fantasy than fact, but there could be a change in the wind and that change could bring a substantial boost to Family Island economies, providing jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Like many shifts in the wind, the promise of creating a new wave started as a fluke. A professor from the U.S. visited The Bahamas with her daughter, flying and booking an Airbnb in Exuma. On a clear day, and from a high enough vantage point, she could just about make out islands all around her, Cat Island to the east, Long Island to the south, and on a map, she could see Rum Cay a fingernail length away.

All looked like an easy ferry ride or plane hop but when she inquired about how to get to those islands, she was told that she and her daughter would have to fly to Nassau, then back to one of the islands, though she might have to overnight in Nassau, and if she wanted to go to a second one, she’d have to fly back to Nassau, possibly overnight again, and go from there. You get the picture.

“I’ve travelled all over the world,” said the Eastern European-born professor, Dr. Tamilla Curtis.

“And I’ve never been to a place where you could not get from one island to another. Yet here in The Bahamas, you cannot go from island to island even though you are blessed with all these beautiful islands that visitors want to see.”

Dr. Curtis, who is an Associate Professor of Management in David B. O’Maley College of Business at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, America’s top aviation institute, could not get over the fact that the nation advertising itself as an adventure of islands was not benefitting from what lay before it.

So she upped and applied for a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program to study the concept of inter-island air transport connectivity and island hopping in The Bahamas, focusing on the very islands she tried unsuccessfully to visit.

She aligned with the University of The Bahamas, won the grant, and is back in The Bahamas conducting interviews and collecting aviation, tourism and economic related data. She is talking with aviation authorities and experts, hoteliers, tourism officials and even small business owners in Exuma, the island she believes would be best suited to be an aviation hub serving surrounding islands.

In December, Dr. Curtis will formally present her findings to The University of the Bahamas.

Ironically, the same week I was introduced to Dr. Curtis, an email bounced into my inbox. It was announcing a JetBlue Caribbean island-hopping promotion. JetBlue was aligning with a regional airline called Winair that would connect travellers to the lesser known islands of the Caribbean.

Here’s the pitch as reported in CaribJournal.com: The serene, mountainous charm of tiny Saba. The spectacular hiking and endless hospitality of Statia. The boating fantasies of Tortola. They’re some of the most sought after little destinations in the Caribbean, but they’re not exactly the easiest to get to. But JetBlue just made it a whole lot easier to reach them.

“In what is a major boost for a number of smaller destinations around the Caribbean, New York-based JetBlue has signed an interline agreement with regional airline Winair,” the news article read.

That’s tough competition for The Bahamas and that’s just the beginning. JetBlue-Winair connections also cover Antigua and Barbuda, Curacao, St Kitts and St Barth.

Major airlines signing interline agreements with smaller or regional carriers is nothing new.

But the opportunity to do it successfully will be that much greater in The Bahamas is dependent on airport passenger handling capacity, from luggage to Customs and Immigration, from taxiways to administration.

The timing of her research is interesting since much-delayed construction on the Exuma International Airport upgrade is expected to restart soon. Imagine the economic impact if visitors who fly British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Air Canada, Delta, JetBlue or American disembark in Exuma and jump aboard an Exuma-based flight on Western Air, Tropix, Trans Island Airways, Golden Wings, Southern Air, Pineapple Air or a new regional connection that would land in minutes in Cat Island, Long Island or Rum Cay. Think of the possibilities, of new accommodations needed, dining experiences, boating, eco-tours.

Suddenly the 16 islands of The Bahamas so ripe for island hopping would be accessible, no longer outposts, but there for locals and guests to explore, just like the award-winning website promises.

And it could have been started by a curious visitor with a vision that others have had before but with the grit to carry it all the way to a Fulbright scholar grant and to university status.

It may not seem like a big story compared to the headlines of the week, unless, that is, you live in Rum Cay and your eyes open wide and your smile breaks into a grin.

Gender parity, thank you Ian Winder

Hallelujah, praise the judge, the columnists, all those who shouted the clarion call or later carried the mantle crying out for gender equality. While we still have a long way to go in the corporate world and even in the leadership of NGOs and non-profits, there is a sense of almost palpable relief that we will one day soon stop living in a world where the most basic rights of citizenship can be out of reach because a woman is married to a foreign man, or a child is born of such a marriage, and that greater rights are accorded those who give birth unwed. Despite the matter still being before the Privy Council for a formal ruling, the government has announced its intention to bring parity to the issue and at the opening of the legal year in his address to the Industrial Tribunal this week, Chief Justice Ian Winder, long an advocate, applauded and lent his voice and support.

And we could have sure used that bit of good news this week. The week that was.