By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Baha Mar's full opening helped drive a 32 percent room revenue increase among major hotel properties for the 2018 first half, although room rates rose by a much smaller amount.

The Central Bank, in its monthly economic report for July, credited the $4.2bn Cable Beach resort's opening, and related airlift increases and tourism marketing campaigns, for sparking growth in the higher-yielding stopover segment during the first six months of 2018.

"Against this backdrop, official data from the Ministry of Tourism showed a 3.1 percent increase in total visitors during the first five months of the year, a reversal from a 2.5 percent decline in the prior period," the Central Bank said.

"Gains in overall arrivals were anchored by the high value-added air segment, which strengthened by 15 percent, in contrast to a six percent contraction in 2017. In addition, the fall-off in sea passengers eased to 0.2 percent from 1.4 percent in the preceding year."

Focusing on the resort sector, the Central Bank added: "Supported by the increase in stopover visitor arrivals, data compiled by the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association revealed that major hotel properties experienced total room revenue gains of 32 percent during the first half of 2018, compared to a decline of seven percent a year earlier.

"Underlying this development, the average daily room rate (ADR) rose by 4.3 percent to $256.65, while total room night sales increased by 26 percent. With the room capacity boost, however, the average hotel occupancy rate was 1.4 percentage points lower at 65.9 percent."

The room revenue growth almost matched the continued strong performance of the Airbnb vacation rental market. "Provisional data from AirDNA showed a 35.1 percent increase in total bookings across the Airbnb platform for properties listed in the country, relative to the same period of 2017," the Central Bank said.

"This development reflected broad-based gains across the major rental centres, with bookings in the Abacos, Exumas, Grand Bahama and New Providence firming between 23 percent and 43 percent as more properties registered with the service.

"An analysis for the two major categories showed that booked nights for both the entire residence and hotel comparable listings rose by 36.5 percent and 39.8 percent, while the comparative average daily rates increased by 4 percent and 3 percent to $349.75 and $137.10, respectively."

The improved stopover performance was also reflected in data supplied by the Nassau Airport Development Company (NAD), the manager for Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA).

"The positive trend in air arrivals was sustained over the first seven months of the year, as data from NAD showed that the growth in visitor departures - net of domestic passengers - strengthened to 8.8 percent in July from 0.6 percent a year earlier," the Central Bank said.

"Underpinning this improvement, the dominant US segment advanced by 8.5 percent, outpacing the 1.4 percent increase recorded in 2017, while non-US international departures rose by 11.9 percent in contrast to a 5.7 percent decline in the previous period.

"An analysis of longer-term trends showed similar results, with visitor departures advancing by 11.8 percent over the seven-month period vis-à-vis the prior year's 1.7 percent fall-off. This outturn was due to gains in both the US and non-US international segments by 11 percent and 16.6 percent, following respective contractions of 1.9 percent and 0.9 percent in 2017."

However, the Central Bank acknowledged that the tourism industry improvement and employment increase via Baha Mar still "trailed the labour force expansion", resulting in the May rise in the unemployment rate.