The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Atlantis guests have accounted for almost one-third of The Bahamas’ total air arrivals during the past 25 years, a senior executive said yesterday, while generating more than $20bn in visitor spending.

Vaughn Roberts, the Paradise Island mega resort’s senior vice-president of government affairs, gave Rotary Club of West Nassau members an insight into its economic impact over the past quarter-century as it led Bahamian tourism’s revival from the doldrums of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He said the property is “responsible for the majority of visitors” to The Bahamas, and has welcomed more than 8.4m guests over the past 25 years, representing 32 percent of total air arrivals and 22 percent of all visitors to The Bahamas.

“We did a tally of our impact over the 25 years from 1998, when the Royal Towers opened, to 2022 and we’ve been responsible for the majority of visitors that have come to The Bahamas in that timeframe at Atlantis,” Mr Roberts said.

“There was a recent celebration with the Ministry of Tourism, which we joined in, where we reported that we have hit the eight million visitor threshold this year so far. And the deputy prime minister translated that into about $6.6bn in GDP. So Atlantis has a significant share of that.

“We’ve estimated that the impact, in terms of visitor arrivals over this 25-year period, we’ve welcomed at Atlantis 8.4m overnight guests. So that’s guests who were staying at the resort, and that represented 22 percent of visitors arriving to The Bahamas and 32 percent of the visitors arriving by air over that period.”

Mr Roberts explained that, in its earlier years of operation, Atlantis accounted for a higher percentage of visitor arrivals due to the fact that other major resorts, such as Baha Mar, either did not exist or had yet to re-open, while Nassau’s cruise port was unable to handle the volume of visitors it can now.

“There are periods of time going back to 1998, 1999, when the percentage was much higher because Baha Mar didn’t exist at the time and a lot of the other tourist destinations that are here today, like the cruise port, didn’t exist on the scale that exists today,” he added. “So, the early years of Atlantis are by far a bigger contributor to tourism and visitor spending.”

Mr Roberts said visitors to the resort have spent $20.2bn, $17.9bn of which was on-property, with the $2.4bn balance spent off-site with taxi drivers, tour operators, vendors and restaurants over the last quarter-century.

He added: “Since opening, Atlantis visitors have contributed $20.2bn to the Bahamas economy and, while the majority of that money actually goes to Atlantis, there is still a sizable portion of that that actually goes to other operators - taxi operators, excursion operators, restaurants and a bunch of other persons who are servicing guests while they’re here in the destination.”

Mr Roberts explained that a “significant portion” of the $17.9bn is spent on salaries, utilities, taxes and suppliers, with Atlantis holding Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) second largest account.

He said Atlantis has paid out over $3.8bn in taxes over the past 25 years - $800m in business taxes and $3bn in VAT. Mr Roberts added: “Its estimated that tax revenues... business taxes, we paid $800m in taxes, and then, with VAT from 2015, a significant portion of spend on VAT.

“So $3bn in VAT, and other taxes, so a total of $3.8bn in taxes over that 25-year period. A significant amount of money to the benefit the people of the Bahamas.” As for Atlantis’ gross domestic product (GDP) contributions, Mr Roberts said the resort has generated $21bn over the 25 years. That translates to an average 7.7 percent of annual GDP, and in the resort’s earlier years this was as high as 12 percent.

He added that the Bahamian economy has “grown significantly” over the past 25 years, and that Atlantis contributed significantly to that by acting as successful foreign tourism investment that was the “catalyst” for other mega resorts such as Baha Mar, plus non-tourism related investments such as the renovation of the airport and roadways.

Mr Roberts said: “Our economy has grown significantly over the 25-year period and we would like to think, at Atlantis, that we were the catalyst for tourism-related investments in The Bahamas and even non-tourism related investments like the new airport, improving the roadway, the cruise port, all of that stuff, I think underwritten on the success of Atlantis.

“If you’re an investor coming into the country, you’re looking for evidence of success for operation, and Atlantis being what it was back then really was the model that we looked at when we were building the model for Baha Mar.”