By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas must "get real" on the urgent need to re-open its tourism industry, a Cabinet minister argued yesterday, adding: "We've got to pull the trigger."

Dionisio D'Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, told Tribune Business that The Bahamas "cannot sit in a bubble and wait for everything to be perfect" with COVID-19 as he unveiled his ministry's recommendation that hotels on every island be allowed to re-open on October 15.

Speaking after he unveiled this fresh attempt to revive tourism, which will see attraction, tour and excursion providers given the go-ahead to resume operations from November 1, Mr D'Aguilar said The Bahamas simply cannot afford the "trauma" of a second industry shutdown as he blasted: "We really have to get this right this time."

He added that the Government had decided to "take the lead" on tourism's return despite continued uncertainty over when the nation's two mega resort flagships, Baha Mar and Atlantis, will welcome visitors as neither has announced a revised opening following closures stretching past five months.

Mr D'Aguilar argued that "we cannot behold the country to those two properties", and wait for them to determine whether COVID-19 cases in The Bahamas' core US markets have fallen-off sufficiently to allow them to re-open, given that the economic interests of multiple other hotels scattered through the island chain must also be prioritised.

He also acknowledged that the continued surge in COVID-19 cases in The Bahamas remains "a concern", as this nation now cannot market itself as a COVID-19 free nation like it was able to do with the first re-opening in June. Another 39 cases were confirmed in this nation yesterday, taking the total to 2,585 - including 1,667 on New Providence.

But while the virus' spread, particularly in New Providence, may deter some potential visitors, Mr D'Aguilar said the markets that Bahamas-bound tourists will originate from are likely seeing greater infection and death rates than this nation as a percentage of their population.

Pointing out that The Bahamas' Tourism Readiness and Recovery Plan, and its health and safety protocols, had "worked the first time" and have altered little, the minister added that contract tracing had shown there were "zero transmissions" of COVID-19 from tourists to locals after the borders re-opened temporarily on July 1.

With no other industry able to generate the necessary jobs and foreign currency inflows that are vital to sustaining the US dollar currency peg, Mr D'Aguilar said the stability of Bahamian society and the economy depends on a sustainable tourism return at the second time of asking.

"We're going to make this work. We ain't going to worry about that. We really have to get this right this time. We have to pull the trigger and get things moving," he told this newspaper of the recommended October 15 re-opening.

"You don't have to be a genius to figure out that 50 percent of our [tax] receipts come from tourism, so we have to get it up and running. This country cannot run out of tourism receipts. If we don't get the business of what we do up and running, the Treasury will be suffering quite significantly.

"We have a country to run. There are expenses to pay for, and we cannot borrow indefinitely. We have to get the business of The Bahamas, which is predominantly tourism, back up and running so that the Government of The Bahamas can fund what it needs to do. Nobody will lend you money of you don't have a business. We have to get real quickly."

Mr D'Aguilar continued: "We all have to learn to live with COVID-19. That's the reality of it. We cannot sit in a bubble waiting for it to be perfect. It's [COVID-19] a fact of life. We have to learn to work with it. We cannot stay frozen in time expecting things will return to what they were. That's the new reality....

"We cannot go and stay in our homes for weeks and weeks. That's for countries that have other sources of income. We cannot lockdown and stare at the wall indefinitely. We have to mitigate it, manage and reduce the risk, and work around it."

The revised tourism re-opening dates, which the Government appears likely to accept, seem to be driven by a recognition that the Bahamian economy's vital signs will continue to weaken unless its primary growth, jobs and foreign exchange driver rapidly rebounds within the next few months.

Besides hoping that the new timeline will enable Bahamian resorts and other tourism businesses to enjoy some kind of boost over the Christmas and Thanksgiving period, the dates also align with the Ministry of Finance's economic and fiscal forecasts.

The Ministry, which is overseeing a record $1.3bn deficit for 2020-2021, coupled with a $2.9bn gross increase in deficit spending over the three years to 2021-2022 and a national debt that is set to breach the $10bn mark, had predicted that tourism activity would resume in October/November in time for the Thanksgiving holiday that traditionally signals the start of the winter tourism season.

Another key consideration will likely be that the temporary furlough period's expiration, beyond which companies must permanently terminate workers or bring them back, occurs at end-September which is also the date when K Peter Turnquest, deputy prime minister, said budgeted assistance for individuals and businesses hit by the COVID-19 pandemic will run out.

With much of the estimated 40 percent unemployment rate accounted for by hotels and other tourism-related businesses, an October 15 restart and gradual ramp-up would prove very timely given that workers will likely be re-hired before these dates.

Mr D'Aguilar, though, conceded that the Government did not have the power to force hotels to open. Acknowledging that this was a decision for their private sector management and owners, he added that The Bahamas could not afford to tie tourism's resumption to the readiness of any particular property.

"We'd love them to announce an opening date as quickly as possible, certainly in November before Thanksgiving," Mr D'Aguilar told Tribune Business of Atlantis and Baha Mar. "We've got to pull the trigger.

"There are a lot of other hotels and a lot of other islands..... We cannot behold the country to these two properties. They need scale. They have to look at COVID-19 conditions in their core markets to decide whether to pull the trigger. What happens in their core markets is a difficult call for them.

"We're just the catalyst. Those [hotel openings] are private sector decisions. They drive it. We can only encourage them to do so. We feel the Government has to take the lead in this exercise and create the right environment for them, but ultimately it's their decision."

Robert Sands, Baha Mar's senior vice-president of government and external affairs, when asked whether the Cable Beach mega resort has decided upon an opening date, replied: "We'll wait for our president [Graeme Davis] to make that decision. No other comment at this time."

Joy Jibrilu, the Ministry of Tourism's director-general, yesterday cautioned Bahamians to expect "a slow ramp up" of the tourism industry following its return even though she suggested the sector will "see demand for Thanksgiving and Christmas going into the New Year".

This suggests that major resorts and other tourism businesses are unlikely to recall all their workforces immediately once the borders re-open on October 15, and Mr D'Aguilar echoed Mrs Jibrilu by saying: "It is important that Bahamians temper their expectations of what they expect their tourism product to look like in the short to medium-term.....

"We cannot afford to open and then close right back down again. That was too traumatic for the tourism sector, and significantly impacted our relationship with our travel partners. We need a period of calm, a period of certainty and a period for those in the tourism sector to methodically plan the measured reopening of their businesses."

The Bahamas opened to the private aviation sector on June 15, as well as the boating/yachting market, with hotels and many other tourism industry components following on July 1. However, the 'second wave' surge of COVID-19 cases brought back by Bahamians who travelled abroad resulted in much of the sector being shuttered again after just one month.

Mr D'Aguilar told Tribune Business that a slow resurgence of business would give The Bahamas sufficient time to test its COVID-19 health and safety protocols, adding: "We have to work through the protocols, work the rust out of our wheels. We may be going at ten, 15, 20, 25, 30 percent and work up. It's better to proceed slowly, cautiously, at first, and as we work the kinks out it kicks in."

Carlton Russell, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association's (BHTA) president, told this newspaper that the industry's health and safety protocols had changed little from those outlined in the Tourism Readiness and Recovery Plan released in June. If these were complied with and fully implemented, he added, the re-opening will "definitely be a success".