NEW YORK, New York – Bahamas Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation, Chester Cooper, Wednesday said that tourist arrivals to the archipelago had returned to the levels before the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country was also pushing to become a hub for Caribbean destinations.
Bahamas Minister of Tourism, Investments and Aviation, Chester Cooper (CMC Photo)Cooper, who is attending the three-day annual Caribbean Week celebrations organized by the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), said “we are of the view that the Bahamas is a magnificent hub for the Caribbean region.
“We fore shadow that we will be able to attract large airlines like…Qatar Airways bringing significant traffic into Nassau and then onwards to other destinations,” said Cooper, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister.
He said the national airline, BahamasAir will create that transfer to the other destinations from the Bahamas to the Caribbean.
“We may also serve as the hub for Latin America, Central America where tourists may want to come and visit the Bahamas and then go onwards to the US. So its foreseeable that we will have even multi-destination travel between the Bahamas and Disney for example in Orlando, although our preferences would be Bahamas (to) Cayman islands, Bahamas (to) Jamaica, Bahamas (to) Nevis.”
But he noted that the pre-clearance facility in Nassau “will facilitate a domestic feel to the travel from the Bahamas onwards to the USA”.
Cooper told the Barbados-based Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBU) that his country is doing “extremely well” with regards to its visitor arrival figures, adding “ we are back to pre-pandemic levels.
“We are promoting our 16 island destinations, we are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year (and) these are exciting times. We have built a new cruise port, U$300 million and we anticipate that our numbers in terms of cruise arrivals will consistently be at least 25 percent ahead of where we were pre-pandemic levels”.
He said that while the COVID-19 pandemic had been a “very difficult period for us” and suffering the passage of Hurricane Dorian, “suffice to say we have a very resilient product and we are very bullish about the future”.
Figures released recently in Nassau, showed that the country had recorded a 33 percent increase in air arrivals during the first four months of this year.
The consulting firm Tourism Analytics, which compiled data from the Ministry of Tourism, said that air arrivals increased to approximately 637,000 from January 1 to April 30, as against 476,000 air arrivals during the same period last year.
“According to the Ministry of Tourism, The Bahamas saw the volume of visitors who arrived by air increase by 16 percent in April 2023, growing from 147,099 air visitors in April 2022 to 170,608 air visitors received in April of this year. The Bahamas also received 680,506 cruise passengers during April 2023, up 57.7 percent from the 431,409 received in April 2022,” Tourism Analytics said.
It said that during the first four months of 2023, The Bahamas saw a 33.7 percent increase in the number of air arrivals, growing from 476,770 air arrivals in the first four months of 2022 to 637,345 air arrivals in the same four months of 2023.
The Bahamas received 2,796,206 cruise visitors in the first four months of 2023, up 94.9 percent from the 1,434,850 cruise visitors received in the first four months of 2022.”
Cooper said that he was pleased with the outcome of the deliberations held here Wednesday with various stakeholders noting the importance of the CTO to the regional tourist sector.
“It was an opportunity for us to collaborate as we compete . So today we discussed issues of our common interest,” he said, adding “one of the issues that we discussed is inter connectivity in terms of airlines…connecting all of the islands of the Caribbean.
“We are looking to see how we can resolve decades old issue by using BahamasAir, Cayman Airways, Caribbean Airlines and other airlines in the region to work together to ensure that there is a commercially feasible solution.
“We are one people and in order to encourage multi-destination….it is absolutely critical that we have this connectivity. It will help with tourism, it will help with trade and it will help with our connection as a Caribbean people,” Cooper added.
