• Pandemic’s huge hit to $4bn-plus outlay

• Bahamas still got much of Q1’s peak

• Cruise spend data exposes ‘work to do’

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

COVID-19 likely cost The Bahamas up to $3bn in lost in-country tourist spending last year, with a Cabinet minister asserting yesterday: “We have to get the sector back into operation.”

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, told Tribune Business that while he had not “gone through the numbers” the pandemic’s impact on the Bahamian economy and society was “evident” from multiple business closures and continuing mass unemployment.

With The Bahamas’ cruise passenger volumes having gone from 5.4m annually to zero over the past 12 months, and stopover visitor numbers slowly but surely improving amid ongoing COVID-19 travel protocols, he added: “I think we have to get our tourism sector back into operation, and get people vaccinated and travelling again. The impact is evident every day, with multiple businesses closed.”

While no figures have yet been produced on 2020’s tourism performance, it is possible to extrapolate COVID-19’s likely impact based on 2019 spending data released by the Ministry of Tourism. The figures for the final year pre-pandemic, which have been seen by Tribune Business, show that visitors spent a total $4.125bn in The Bahamas for a year-over-year increase of 10.7 percent.

Given that the pandemic struck The Bahamas in March, with the government imposing a lockdown covering the final two weeks of that month, this nation will still have gained most of its typical tourist spend during the 2020 first quarter.

Tourists spent some $1.295bn during the 2019 first quarter, a period that coincides with the peak winter tourism season when visitor volumes and spending are typically at their highest. More than $1bn of this number was provided by stopover visitors at $1.169bn, with cruise passengers contributing $124.844m.

COVID-19 lockdowns, travel restrictions in both The Bahamas and its major source markets, and other impediments meant this nation earned little to nothing from tourism during the 2020 second quarters with the July 1 border re-opening quickly aborted by the government.

Tourism’s second attempted re-opening, which began in November 2020, saw minimal business that month with the Christmas/New Year period also relatively quiet when compared to past years as many hotels and industry operators - especially the larger properties - enjoyed minimal business.

Mr D’Aguilar, in his mid-year Budget presentation, also confirmed that total tourist arrivals to The Bahamas were down by 74 percent or almost three-quarters. As a result, and allowing for the fact that the industry still enjoyed most of the first quarter, subtracting the $1.295bn earned in the first three months of 2019 from the full year total gives a figure of $2.83bn that would have been lost in 2020.

As a back-of-the-envelope calculation it gives an insight into the extent of the financial blow and losses inflicted by COVID-19 on The Bahamas’ major industry. This represents monies spent directly in the destination with restaurants, taxi drivers, retailers, hair braiders, tour operators and other vendors - the whole range of Bahamian entrepreneurs. 

It also under-estimates the true extent of the financial devastation as the Ministry of Tourism’s figures likely do not include monies spent ‘offshore’ on hotel room bookings and the like before visitors arrive in The Bahamas.

Given that this nation was thought to be on course to mirror 2019’s performance before COVID-19’s emergence, the data indicates that the pandemic cost the entire Bahamas somewhere around $268m in cruise passenger spending over the final months of last year.

Charles Klonaris, the Downtown Nassau Partnership’s (DNP) co-chair, told Tribune Business that the last full year of pre-COVID data exposed the extent of downtown Nassau’s task when it comes to generating increased returns from the cruise industry once it resumes sailing from Florida again.

Tribune Business last week revealed Ministry of Tourism data showing that 43 percent of passengers who exit the ship in Nassau spend less than $50 while in port, while per capita spending in 2019 was still lower than 2013 - six years previously - albeit trending in the right direction.

“I think that really illustrates a clear position as to where the city really is, and there’s a lot of work to be done, especially in the service industries - restaurants, entertainment and showing the culture of The Bahamas,” Mr Klonaris said of the data. “Those are things we are really missing.”

While acknowledging improved product offerings from tour operators, he added: “We need to improve the city tours and how they connect with the restaurants. The big thing for downtown to keep the tourists as well as the locals is the nightlife. How many live performances do we have downtown in the evening? We don’t have any.

“That’s one area we can improve to attract the tourists, connecting the port to the city itself during the evening. Until we create that, especially in the culinary and nightlife we’re not going to get much spend from visitors on cruise ships because they have all the amenities on board.

“We have to be creative if we’re going to compete against what they have on a cruise ship. Until we do that it’s going to be difficult to compete. We have to elevate the experience downtown. Creating an exciting city during the day and evening is the first and critical step to entertain the tourists.”