Here is yet another excellent letter from a travel agent friend of The Bahamas. He says that he has been selling trips here for over fifty years. The tragedy at Sandals has disappeared from our news stories the past three days. We have no idea what the autopsy said or when we will be told-if ever. Surely for our ongoing tourism bookings we need to tell the world what happened and what measures will be taken to prevent another similar tragedy. Tourism is our lifeblood. Are Government officials and Sandals listening??

Apparently lots to hide. The longer this intransparency takes the more damages.

Another ridiculous, deceitful “travel agent” letter. I hope the US government will also be forthcoming with information about the hundreds of visitors to the US who die every year!
The idea that people are cancelling trips because they haven’t heard the private details of these unfortunate deaths is absurd. Nobody would ever travel to the US if they worried about all the crime and violent deaths there…and there wasn’t even any foul play in this case. Quite frankly the idea that anyone still uses a travel agency to book a simple flight and a hotel stay is also laughable, as laughable as the whining complaints about “unrealistic and expensive rules”…seriously? The Bahamas gives you 3 days to get a test done…the US gives you one day, so tell me, who is being unreasonable here. If it is “so difficult” to come to The Bahamas, why are the hotels now operating at 90%+ occupancy and why are the flights so full that any seats left cost a fortune? Stop whining, stop being a hypocrite and please grow up.

The female American Tourist that passed away was a Travel Agent specializing in Sandals vacations. So yes, many people still use travel agents to arrange everything for their vacations.

Ok, then. Point taken. So if the rest of us can manage to sort out our own travel arrangements, testing where necessary, Verifly, passenger locator forms, travel health visas etc in our own time when we aren’t working and dealing with all the other stresses of life, travel agents whose full time jobs are to deal with travel related issues should find it a breeze to deal with the simple (my kids can do it themselves) requirements to come here. And why do they keep implying that our requirements are so incredibly strict when the requirements to enter their own countries are more strict?

I do agree that navigating the requirements to enter The Bahamas is easy. I have had my Travel Health Visa since 2020 and travel internationally frequently. You don't have to wait until your travel date to get the Travel Health Visa. You can apply in advance and fill in all your personal data and then 'before your travel date, get tested and upload it to your account and you're done.

Let us face the truth. The adverse publicity concerning these deaths worldwide does not do our country any good. Another day passes and no information. It does not look very good. We are grateful for all the travel agents who have brought us bookings over many years- the letter writer for over fifty years- so rather than being critical and giving nasty comments- we should listen to their concerns with respect. They are only writing in a spirit of goodwill to Bahamians.

The Bahamas lacks professional crisis management. Cutting ribbons isn’t enough. The US President was at 9/11 site immediately.

I don't believe for a second this is a travel professional but yes the deaths don't look good, I mean what the hell happened?

Whatever he was is not relevant brutal fact is he and others were killed and government ducking. Full transparency needed. This won’t go away.

This is like with the Pfizer vaccine, they will release the findings in 75 years...

All gifts appear to have this knee jerk reaction of either hiding or disavowing any knowledge of bad news. They'll day the release until a bigger story pops up to smother it.. watch and see.

What no govt appears to understand is, noone really forgets. #baseballstadium27million?