The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A senior Bahamian tourism executive yesterday said Nassau/Paradise Island has recovered to 97 percent of pre-COVID business volumes by March 2023 with airlift capacity up by double digits for the year-to-date.

Joy Jibrilu, the Nassau Paradise Island Promotion Board’s chief executive, giving an update on the destination at an International Travel Partners Conference, said: “By March 2023 our recovery pace was at 97 percent, while Canada, which had a much slower return to travel, was at 80 percent and Central & South America were already at 100 percent when compared to 2022.

“We are seeing continued increase in demand, which has contributed greatly to our recovery post-pandemic. Year-to-date we are seeing a 15 percent increase in total non-Caribbean seats to Nassau versus 2022. Transatlantic seat capacity is up 38 percent year-to-date compared to 2022.

“Passenger traffic at LPIA (Lynden Pindling International Airport) has seen an increase in traffic of 33 percent through to May. And, finally, and very importantly, we have 38 non-stop daily flights to Nassau.” Turning to the volume of traffic visiting the Promotion Board’s website, she said: “We saw a tremendous uptick in visits to Nassau Paradise Island dot.com, with these website visits converting into actual visits to the destination.

“Total traffic to our website through to June 2023 is up 85 percent compared to same period last year, and total website referrals to our partner resorts also increased by 68.2 percent to almost one million referrals to our member property pages for the same period. Interestingly, the top five markets that are visiting our website are New York, followed by Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and Atlanta.”

As for continued growth in airlift, Mrs Jibrilu said: “I am delighted to announce that Alaska Airlines will also be offering seasonal service from two West Coast destinations – beginning on December 14 and operating through to April 2024. Alaska Airlines will also offer direct flights from Los Angeles to Nassau four times’ per week during this period.

“And the good news continues as Alaska Airlines will also be adding for the same period – December through to April - direct service from Seattle, Washington, three times’ per week. This opens up the whole north-western seaboard for The Bahamas, as connections from Vancouver and even Alaska will make our island destination an obvious warm weather vacation choice.”

Mrs Jibrilu’s presentation follows the upbeat assessment given by Chester Cooper, deputy prime minister and minister of tourism, investments and aviation, during his 2023-2024 Budget presentation. He said total tourist numbers for the four months to end-April 2023 were almost 30 percent ahead of The Bahamas’ prior record year of 2019 which occurred immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our tourism performance over this fiscal year continues to shatter pre-pandemic levels and further positions The Bahamas among the regional and global leaders in terms of overall tourism recovery,” Mr Cooper asserted. “And we are just getting started. At the end of April 2023, overall air and sea arrivals surpassed 2022 levels by 79 percent and exceeded the banner 2019 numbers by 32 percent.

“Looking specifically at the numbers, between January to April 2022, we welcomed an overall 1.9m visitors. During that same period in 2019, we welcomed 2.7m visitors. During the same four-month period this year, we welcomed some 3.5m visitors with eight more months left.

“On this current trajectory, we fully expect to shatter the much-touted historic 2019 overall visitor arrivals numbers by the end of the third quarter and will conservatively welcome well over eight million visitors by the end of 2023.”

Focusing on higher-yielding stopover visitors, Mr Cooper added: “Air stopover arrivals – heads in beds that stay longer and spend more – surpassed 2022 levels by 34 percent, and matched 2019 performance levels, pacing well ahead of overall global pre-pandemic recovery forecasts.

“At some point within this fiscal year, we saw most of our islands experiencing their most historic monthly foreign air arrivals. We are breaking records in Nassau/Paradise Island, South Andros, North Andros and the Berry Islands, Cat Cay, Cat Island, Eleuthera, Exuma and Long Island too.

“If we analyse the major islands that have not reached full recovery, we will see that after being shut down for over two years, San Salvador air stopovers have now returned to 92 percent of their 2019 levels and are expected to end this year, also experiencing record air arrivals,” he added.

“Grand Bahama air stopovers surpassed 2022 levels by 70 percent and rebounded to over 80 percent of pre-pandemic levels. However, when we combine total air and sea arrivals into Grand Bahama, total visitor arrivals exceeded 2022 levels by 137 percent, and overall visitor arrivals have soared to 91 percent of 2019 pre-pandemic and Hurricane Dorian levels.

“Abaco air stopover arrivals have exceeded 2022 levels by 70 percent and recorded 75 percent of pre-pandemic and Hurricane Dorian airlift. However, when we look at Abaco’s overall air and sea arrivals, you will see that overall visitor arrivals surpassed 2022 figures by 72 percent and, at the end of April, Abaco’s overall visitor arrivals were at 99 percent of the 2019 figures..... In short, tourism is booming, and the numbers have never been better.”