The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

A Cabinet minister yesterday renewed calls for The Bahamas to shift its focus from record-breaking visitor arrivals to retaining more tourism spending within its economy given that as much as 85 cents of every dollar leaves the country almost immediately.

Contributing to the 2026-2027 Budget debate, Glenys Hanna-Martin, minister of tourism, said the industry remains the country's economic lifeblood but warned that a significant portion of its value is captured outside The Bahamas.

"And yet, despite all of this, this high dependency and all these numbers, our mainstay carries a contradiction in its internal workings," she said. "We know that perhaps 85 cents of every tourism dollar leaves our economy almost immediately."

Mrs Hanna-Martin said the reasons for this leakage are well understood, citing reliance on imported fuel, food, furniture and hotel supplies, as well as foreign ownership throughout parts of the tourism value chain.

"Many of the hotels, cruise lines, airlines and booking platforms are foreign-owned, and profits and management fees are repatriated abroad," she said. "Our marketing, insurance, technology and financing costs are largely paid overseas, and our local supply linkages to agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing and the cultural industries remain limited."

While acknowledging tourism's critical importance to the national economy, Mrs Hanna-Martin argued that the traditional approach to measuring success requires rethinking.

"The future of tourism development must be measured not only by the number of visitors we welcome, but by the number of Bahamians empowered to own, create, lead and prosper within the industry," she said. “The vision is to shift from measuring tourism success primarily by arrivals to measuring it by local economic participation, Bahamian ownership and wealth creation."

According to Mrs Hanna-Martin, increasing visitor arrivals alone does not automatically translate into broader prosperity. "Many destinations have learned that increasing arrivals does not on its own increase prosperity," she said. 

"The Bahamas already attracts high-spending visitors, so the work before us is to maximise local capture of that spending." Mrs Hanna Martin argued that policymakers should increasingly focus on the value generated by each visitor and how much of that spending remains within the country.

"The question we must keep asking is how much value each visitor generates and how much of every tourism dollar stays in the local economy," she said. Mrs Hanna Martin also highlighted the growing dominance of cruise tourism within the sector.

She added that The Bahamas welcomed nearly 11 million cruise passengers in 2025, with Nassau alone receiving approximately 6.7 million cruise visitors. However, she said spending patterns reveal a significant imbalance.

"In other words, 80 percent of visitors come via cruise and contribute approximately 20 percent to tourism spending," said Mrs Hanna-Martin. She contrasted average cruise passenger spending, estimated between $85 and $150 per visit, with average stopover visitor spending of approximately $2,700.

"The challenge before us is to ensure that cruise passengers venture into the wider national economy, spending more and spreading benefit more broadly across the Bahamian economy," she said.

Summing up the ministry's direction, Mrs Hanna-Martin said: "The industry has become more competitive, and most of the yield is felt outside the country. The last fact is the one this ministry intends to change."