By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Visitor interest in Family Island vacations has "skyrocketed" since mid-October, it was revealed yesterday, with hotel room nights sold forecast to beat prior year in nearly every month through April 2020.

Kerry Fountain, the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board's (BOIPB) executive director, told Tribune Business there had been an "exponential increase" in visitors using its website as a pass-through to member resorts since it relaunched its marketing and incentive programmes in mid-October following Hurricane Dorian.

He added that major international distributors such as Expedia, as well as local operators, had informed him that the "phone started ringing off the hook" three weeks' ago with inquiries from travellers interested in exploring a Bahamian vacation after the category five storm's passage.

Confirming that such inquiries had been "dead" during the first half of October, Mr Fountain said such reports combined with the data he has seen suggest that Family Island resorts and tourism operators are also shrugging off their "hurricane hangover".

However, he acknowledged that the "very encouraging trends" would not completely make-up for October's lost business and Abaco's shut-down, as some wary travellers either altered plans or stayed away from The Bahamas due to concerns about Dorian's damage and lingering impacts.

Mr Fountain said the Out Island Promotion Board's own forecasts had predicted year-over-year fourth quarter 2019 increases in room nights sold for every major category of member bar small resorts with less than 50 rooms in the southern Bahamas.

But Dorian's devastation has now turned those optimistic projections into losses, with room nights sold at Promotion Board-member resorts with 50 rooms and under in the northern Bahamas - which includes Abaco - now projected to be 30 percent down year-over-year compared to the previous estimate of a 12.7 percent increase.

Now, to drive tourist traffic in a "need period" for Family Island resort, Mr Fountain said the Promotion Board is employing a series of "air credit" incentives that include its upcoming "Black Friday" offer of a $500 credit for visitors who book in the five days between November 29 and December 3 for a holiday that must be completed before end-January 2020.

Explaining that the Promotion Board was maximising the resources available to it, given that it is "underfunded" and lacks members on the scale of Baha Mar and Atlantis, Mr Fountain said it had already begun its marketing comeback after "pausing every single drop of advertising" in Dorian's wake.

As international media attention on the storm's aftermath began to wane in late September, he added that the Promotion Board relaunched its "Google search" advertising mechanism and "started to ramp up everything we do" during October's first half.

Mr Fountain said it sought to complement the Ministry of Tourism's focus on educating visitors that 14 of 16 Bahamian island destinations remained open post-Dorian by providing incentives for them to book and come now.

One deal, launched on October 21, and for which the booking window ended yesterday, offered to pay $250 towards a visitor's air fare costs if they stayed for four nights or longer at a Promotion Board member hotel flying non-stop from a US gateway.

For those transiting through Nassau to the Family Islands, the Promotion Board is offering to buy one and two round-trip tickets between the two destinations for persons staying four nights and seven nights-plus, respectively, in a promotion scheduled to close at end-November.

"Our message was not just come to these 14 islands, but come to these 12, stay in a member hotel and take advantage of these offers," Mr Fountain explained. "Coming right up next week, starting on Thanksgiving and flowing right through to Tuesday, we have Black Friday. If you book a seven-night vacation in those five days you will get a $500 air credit but must complete your holiday in January.

"What we try and do with all our promotional efforts is drive business in a need period... We also want to encourage Bahamian residents if they want to get away, instead of going to Florida and shopping yourself into a frenzy take a break and come to the Out Islands. Stay two nights and there is one round-trip ticket, and for four nights there is two round-trip tickets."

The Promotion Board, which has 40 member hotels, has configured its website to link and drive visitor traffic to their own sites. Mr Fountain described "hot leads" as persons who not only visited members' websites, but entered their booking engines and conducted research activity.

"I bring that up to say that since we launched our advertising at the beginning of October, mid-October, the number of leads and hot leads going to my member hotels from my website, the increase has been exponential," Mr Fountain told Tribune Business.

"Consumers tend to support destinations that have suffered something like we did with Dorian. I can tell you we're not talking about a small 3 percent increase; the increase in leads and awareness has been exponential."

Mr Fountain said the rebound being experienced by the Promotion Board and its members was being mirrored by international booking/search engine giants such as Expedia, plus Bahamas-based Family Island distribution channels such as Majestic Holiday and Bahamago.com

Noting that Expedia's data includes all Family Island hotels, not just Promotion Board members, Mr Fountain said: "Based on their numbers all Out Islands, with the exception of this next month; if you look at the number of room nights sold as at November 18, 2019, and compare that with November 18, 2018, with the exception of a slight decrease in December through April every month is showing an increase."

He added that Bahamago.com had told him business activity was now "close to normal", while Majestic Holiday had seen "very, very positive" signs for bookings over the past two weeks.

"In the month of October the telephone and website inquiries were dead," Mr Fountain told Tribune Business. "Then, about three weeks ago, the phone started to ring off the hook and inquiries skyrocketed."

Still, he acknowledged that the revived booking pace would not be enough to compensate for Abaco's Dorian-induced loss or the fall-off in October business. Mr Fountain said the Promotion Board's August 7 forecast of a 12.7 percent fourth quarter year-over-year increase in room nights sold for its small hotel members with less than 50 rooms had been downgraded to a 30 percent decline.

Similarly, expectations of a 9.2 percent increase in room nights sold for small hotels with less than 50 rooms in the central Bahamas had been dropped to a 3.1 percent year-over-year decline. And, for the Promotion Board's larger members with 50 rooms or more, the forecast has been reversed from an 8.2 percent increase to a 5.5 percent drop.

There was slightly better news for small hotels with 50 rooms or less in the southern Bahamas, where the 10 percent decrease in room nights sold projected in August was trimmed slightly to 9.5 percent in the latest forecast.

"All in all, while we did have a little hurricane hangover, the forecast.... is very encouraging," Mr Fountain said. "Any bout of cold weather that we have in the north-east or upper mid-west will work even better for bookings.'

He added that the Family Islands were "more resilient than other destinations" in the face of Dorian-type events due to the fact their visitor base is concentrated more heavily on repeat tourist business.