By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The tourism “floodgates” will open if The Bahamas can tell its core visitor markets that its population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a top government official asserted yesterday.

Joy Jibrilu, the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general, told a Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference panel discussion that achieving so-called herd immunity and mass inoculation would “be the best marketing tool that could be handed to us” in reviving an industry estimated to generate around half of all Bahamian jobs and economic activity.

Adding her voice to growing warnings that the Bahamian economy will never be able to fully recover from the pandemic’s devastation unless the majority of its population become vaccinated, Mrs Jibrilu said her ministry’s primary goal had always been health and safety - especially that of front-line tourism workers interacting with foreign visitors.

“For The Bahamas to be able to say that we, as a nation, our population is fully vaccinated and our country is a safe place to visit, that would open the floodgates as people would want to travel, but health and safety is a big concern,” she added.

“That would be the best marketing tool that could be handed to us at this time, but that goes hand in hand with having to protect citizens.” Mrs Jibrilu also defended The Bahamas’ requirement that, prior to tomorrow, all visitors had to produce a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within five days of travelling to this nation.

This measure will be relaxed tomorrow for all visitors who can prove they are fully vaccinated, meaning they have received two COVID-19 jabs, but the policy has come under fire from repeated letters to this newspaper - especially from Canadians - complaining that the PCR test is too costly, difficult to access and makes the logistics of arranging travel just too cumbersome and uncertain.

The Ministry of Tourism’s director-general said people had questioned whether The Bahamas was “mad” for insisting on a negative PCR test, amid suggestions that it would deter what little tourism business there was during COVID-19, but argued that the opposite occurred because persons wanted to visit a destination that was safe and taking the virus seriously.

However, Dr Monique Pratt, a fellow panellist, conceded that The Bahamas has “a ways to go” to get its vaccinated population up to a level where it can achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 with even her fellow medical professionals sceptical about taking the jab.

The Kidney Centre consultant said: “I had to convince a few of my front-line doctors to take the vaccine. It was a very difficult task to convince them to take it. It’s still not where it should be, and I think it’s [the vaccination rate] pretty low here on Grand Bahama. We have a ways to go.

“As far as hesitancy, it’s a global problem. The same thing here. People are afraid about the effects, short and long-term effects. Social media is not our friend right now. The benefits outweigh the risks of getting the vaccine. We definitely need it to open our economy back up.

“People are hesitant because they are afraid. I’ve been there. I was very afraid before I got my shot..... We’re all afraid of the unknown but it’s something we have to do. We all have to do it. I encourage people to take the vaccine. Social media is not our friend right now. It’s working against us.”

Mrs Jibrilu, meanwhile, responding to concerns that taxi drivers and other vendors may be unable to provide services to Royal Caribbean passengers when the cruise line begins its Bahamas home porting on June 12, which includes weekly calls on Freeport, said that industry was “being particularly cautious and The Bahamas with it” following the on-ship outbreaks seen early in the pandemic.

“Our health resources are limited, and there is only so much as a nation that we can handle with regard to outbreaks of COVID-19,” she added. “They want to come in and work with that bubble, and if that works they will be able to expand what they are offering.

“Let’s get our toes in. We don’t want a repeat of July last year, when we were over-confident, thought we could re-open the borders and everything crashed.” However, she added that other cruise ships are set to follow Royal Caribbean’s lead, providing further opportunities for Bahamian businesses.

Mrs Jibrilu said airlift, hotel and cruise subsidies offered by the Government to operators prior to the pandemic were “costly for our country and have the potential to skew the market demand and tourism product, making it difficult to sell the destination to discerning customers”.

Addressing the difficulties that the Ministry of Tourism experiences in attracting airlift, she said carriers based their decision on whether to service a particular destination on the amount of hotel room inventory and tourism activity that is taking place given that this will passenger demand.

“Airlines are businesses,” Mrs Jibrilu added. “When they see an uptick they will come to the table. That’s the way we want them to approach us. It’s a straightforward business deal. When we go out to the airlines, we’re not approaching them from a position of strength, as we’re lacking hotel rooms and tourist activity on the island. They always say: ‘Who’s going to pay for my risk?’”