By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Tourism bookings from the Bahamas’ key US markets are up 15 per cent for the peak Easter period, a Cabinet minister yesterday urging businesses to “work harder” at exploiting this growth.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism, told Tribune Business that data provided by ForwardKeys, the travel intelligence platform, revealed ‘double digit’ growth for the March-May period in Bahamas airlines tickets purchased in the New York, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. And, with data for the same period showing similar growth from Canada and the UK, Mr D’Aguilar said the figures gave a “warm and fuzzy feeling” that tourism was set to contribute significantly to the Bahamas’ projected 2.5 per cent GDP growth for 2018.

He then urged Bahamian entrepreneurs to “step up to the plate” and exploit this growth, arguing that this nation’s private sector was failing to fully “take advantage” of the economic opportunity presented by the total 6.3 million tourists setting foot in this nation annually.

Mr D’Aguilar reiterated the need to establish better “linkages” between the tourism industry and the rest of the Bahamian economy, in a bid to reduce the 85 cents of every $1 leakage on imports, and said he was “not convinced we work hard enough” to maximise the sector’s potential spin-offs. “Looking at New York, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, they’re all showing growth of roughly 15 per cent,” he told Tribune Business of the Forward Keys data. “Canada, out of Calgary, Toronto and Montreal, over the next three months is showing 27 per cent growth. The UK is at 12 per cent growth.”

ForwardKeys tracks airline tickets purchased, and paid for, to the Bahamas from key source markets over a set period of time. The data, especially the figures from this nation’s critical Florida and US north-east coast markets, indicates that hotels and other tourism industry players are likely to enjoy an improved Easter showing - at least in terms of volume - given that the sector’s peak period is now less than two weeks away.

While cautioning that all data was “relative”, and needed to be assessed in its proper context, Mr D’Aguilar added: “If the source markets, New York, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, are looking up, that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling that we should continue this upward trend.

“It goes in line with our projected economic growth, which I think is projected in excess of 2 per cent this year. I think a lot of the growth is going to be driven by tourism, and what is key is that we get growth in our stopover visitors.”

With the outlook positive, Mr D’Aguilar called on Bahamian entrepreneurs to identify more creative and innovative ways to ensure tourism’s multi-billion dollar annual earnings remain in this nation.

“I believe our entrepreneurial class doesn’t do enough to take advantage of the 6.3 million tourists that come here every year and create a lot of business opportunities,” he told Tribune Business.

“We have to push ourselves to take advantage of it. There are opportunities there that we need to take advantage of, and I don’t think we maximise that and create linkages between the tourism business and domestic economy.

“Don’t let someone come here and, for lack of service and product, they import something. We have to be creative. This is where the private sector has to step up to the plate and take advantage of all these foreign visitors that come here,” Mr D’Aguilar continued.

“That’s work. I’m not convinced we work hard enough to take advantage of the opportunities.”

One of the Bahamas’ ‘Holy Grails’ has long been to strengthen, and improve, linkages between the tourism sector and remainder of the domestic economy as a means to boost GDP, employment and entrepreneurship.

Successive administrations have targeted this area, but there have been no measurable assessments of their success, with an estimated 85 cents of every $1 spent by tourists visiting this nation still thought to ‘leak out’ beyond the Bahamas’ borders without import substitution.

Mr D’Aguilar, though, said Baha Mar’s launch, combined with the return of Atlantis’s Coral Towers, the RIU Paradise Island’s re-opening, and the arrival of the Warwick Paradise Island and Courtyard by Marriott, meant the Bahamas was looking at its strongest tourism-driven growth for a decade.

“We haven’t experienced that growth in any year since 2008,” he said of the IMF’s 2.5 per cent projection. The Minister said Baha Mar’s 5,000 hirings, based on an average annual wage bill of $25,000, will inject some $125 million in new spend into the economy, as he urged Bahamian entrepreneurs to put their surplus capital to work.

“All the projections point towards meaningful growth in GDP, and I think the mood is changing,” he told Tribune Business. “Investment is a function of how you feel about the future.

“Whatever you say about the FNM and its style, we’re certainly sending a message that it’s easier to do business here, and we’re much more business friendly in trying to get inward investment.

“It’s causing people to look. We need that change in confidence. If we don’t have that change in confidence, people will hold on to their money. My message to Bahamians is: You have significant amounts of money holed up in the bank earning less than 1 per cent. So now is the time to earn a return, yield on surplus cash you have in the bank,” Mr D’Aguilar added.

“Take advantage of what I think is a period of growth. This is time to expand your business, prepare for growth and its impact on the economy.”