Valery Brown-Alce, Executive Director Global Sales, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism; Latia Duncombe, Director General, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism; Paul Strachan, Executive Director Global Communications, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism;
Anita Johnson-Patty, Director Global Communications, Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. Photo courtesy of Jim Byers
Visitors are returning to the Bahamas in record numbers. But tourism officials are hungry for more business, and they’re eager to work with Canadian advisors.
Officials from The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism were in Toronto on 17APR for meetings with the media, including a session with Open Jaw. They outlined new properties, including the Goldwynn Resort and Residences, built on Cable Beach by a Canadian developer and featuring a beautiful infinity pool.
They also cited the new $300 million cruise port in Nassau, which will include dozens of local vendors, new restaurants, a theatre for live performances and a Junkanoo Museum to showcase the country's cultural heritage. The port should open 26MAY.
Valery Brown-Alce, Executive Director of Global Sales, encouraged more Canadian travel advisors to be part of the Bahamas Specialist Programme.
“We’re promoting cooperative marketing, through the travel agents, getting them to know more about The Bahamas, the specials that we have … so they can promote and sell. We’re also touching them digitally as well, deploying email campaigns so they know about all of the special deals and festivals.”
The training site, www.bahamas.com/travel-agents, includes downloadable and shareable material, such as island fact sheets and both video and photo content, to help advisors promote their business.
Brown-Alce also said she wants to work with key travel consortium groups and make headway in the luxury market.
“And we don't want to stop the familiarization trips, getting the agents down to the Bahamas to see more of our islands. That's very important to us.”
Latia Duncombe, Director General for the tourism ministry, said this year marks 50 years of independence for The Bahamas. The official independence day is 10JUL, but there are parties, concerts and events taking place all year long on all the main 16 islands of The Bahamas, as well as in countries where Bahamians have settled in large numbers.
Getting Beyond Nassau
It’s great for tourists to check out Nassau, but Duncombe said The Bahamas is encouraging exploration of lesser-known destinations and outer islands, including Andros, Cat Island and Long Island, which is some 60 miles long and only has a couple of resorts. You can swim with goats on Long Island, while Cat Island has a natural pool that some claim has healing powers.
Because there are so many islands to explore, most easily reached by boat or a short plane ride, visitors can experience several types of vacation in one country, Duncombe said. They can explore pink sand beaches, kayak through peaceful channels lined with deep green mangroves, and swim or go boating in some of the world’s most beautiful water.
Voluntourism Opportunities and Connecting with Communities
Visitors also can help restore the destination’s reefs by planting corals, or work at restoring vital mangroves.
One great program is called People to People, where visitors sign up to do tours with local volunteers. They might go to church with a family, shop at a local market, have lunch together, and go fly fishing in the afternoon.
“Visitors go to parties with them, they go to festivals with them,” Duncombe said. “We've seen where they've developed long standing relationships. And now the children, and the children's children, have become friends.”
“We find that many visitors don’t want a commercialized experience,” she said. “We’re seeing that people want to know what local activities can be done; what Bahamians like to do, whether it’s hanging out playing dominoes or a backyard barbecue with authentic food.”
Duncombe said she loves to take visitors to a Bahamian fish fry, or on a tour of Nassau that includes a stop at a chocolate factory.
Travel Trends
Leisure travel is dominant in The Bahamas, with the average daily stay being eight to nine days. There are also a lot of snowbirds who stay 30 or 60 days, Duncombe noted.
The destination also is very strong in MICE, and is a very popular wedding and honeymoon spot.
The Bahamas has seen a 223 per cent increase in visitation in the first two months of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. With Air Canada, WestJet, and Sunwing set to expand their service to The Bahamas this Fall/Winter with daily flights to Nassau, and weekly flights to Exuma and Grand Bahama Island, Canadians will find the destination more accessible than ever, officials said.
In 2019, the year before the pandemic, The Bahamas recorded 134,574 visitor arrivals from Canada. Numbers are steadily rising from the lows of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, and last year saw 43,574 Canadian visits.
Tourism executives said 2023 is “looking very promising.”
