By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government will “continue to pursue” Qatar Airways to establish an aviation hub in The Bahamas that can service Latin America and the wider Western Hemisphere, the deputy prime minister has pledged.

Chester Cooper, also minister of tourism, investments and aviation, in a pre-recorded video interview said the mission he led to Qatar and Saudi Arabia had paved the way for The Bahamas to exploit further investment and economic opportunities in that Middle Eastern region.

Disclosing that The Bahamas is close to establishing full diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, he argued that “there is an opportunity to till the soil further” through more visits to the region and direct contacts between its private sector and their Bahamian counterparts.

While the relationships and contacts established by Mr Cooper and his delegation, which also included Senator Michael Halkitis, minister of economic affairs, have to be further nurtured to convert them into tangible benefits for The Bahamas, the deputy prime minister said their meeting with Qatar Airways’ president and chief executive had discussed multiple tourism and aviation possibilities.

“We are interested in establishing links internationally through an inter-airline agreement with Bahamasair, as well as causing there to be some promotion through Qatar Holidays to bring tourists to The Bahamas,” Mr Cooper said, “by way of links that already exist through Miami and other major US destinations. That is what we sought to achieve on the tourism front, and we believe we have made significant ground.”   

Noting that The Bahamas already has an air services agreement with Qatar, the deputy prime minister said this nation has again promised to support the Gulf state’s bid for membership on the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) council. It had previously done this in 2019, when Qatar was unsuccessful.

Seeking to build on that air services agreement, Mr Cooper added: “In addition to developing an inter-airline agreement with Qatar Airways, we sought to attract them to The Bahamas to create a hub for passengers as well as cargo. We wanted to explore that possibility of The Bahamas as a hub for the region and outward to Latin America.

“This is something we will continue to pursue for the future, but in the short-term Qatar Airways has offered technical assistance for reviewing the operations of Bahamasair, establishing linkages and inter-airline agreements with Bahamasair and making determinations as to how we might improve the operations of our very own airline.

“In addition to this, the Government has been able to secure their assistance for technical co-operation and training,” Mr Cooper continued. “We are going to establish a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for assistance and training as it relates to aviation. 

“We will look to see how we can get technical assistance in establishing our own aviation institution in The Bahamas. Initially we have a commitment for some training programmes where we will be able to send our citizens to Qatar Airways or the civil aviation authority in Qatar for training and, in the long and medium term, we will work hand in hand to develop an institution, so in effect we have covered a lot of ground.”

When it came to Saudi Arabia, Mr Cooper said the mission obtained a “commitment in principle” that the Middle East kingdom will provide “matching funds” through its tourism development agencies to The Bahamas’ Tourism Development Corporation and Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) to finance tourism-related small businesses and entrepreneurs in this nation.

Describing Saudi Arabia as a new but wealthy entrant to tourism, with plans to invest $100bn in developing attractions that include snow skiing in the desert as it plans for the eventual transition from oil, Mr Cooper said The Bahamas was seeking to develop a relationship that “will work both ways” with this nation providing technical and training assistance to it.

He added that the Saudis were “very excited” about initiatives such as BahamaHost and ‘People to People’, and with that country’s tourism industry still developing he said: “There are some issues with service. No doubt we can teach them a thing or two....”

Mr Cooper said the Ministry of Tourism will also seek to develop “packages” for Saudi travellers flying to destinations such as Orlando (Disney World) and London in the hope that they may add on a leg that would take them to The Bahamas.

And he revealed that the Government is also planning to stage investment forums involving both Qatari and Saudi investors, possibly as early as this summer, in a bid to facilitate contacts with the Bahamian private sector and build relations with the two Middle Eastern states further following his group’s mission.