By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

NASSAU/Paradise Island resorts were yesterday said to “all” be beating expectations heading into the peak Easter weekend as the sector rebounds from the “hair-raising” crime alert fall-outs.

Joy Jibrilu, the Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board’s chief executive, told Tribune Business that all members were “hit” by international media coverage surrounding the US and Canadian travel warnings but the sector had rebounded strongly with airline seat capacity for February some 32 percent ahead of 2023 comparatives at 6,838 seats per day.

“As it relates to Easter, coming off the last week of January and first week of February it was quite a hair-raising time not knowing what direction we were trending in,” she disclosed. “The rebound has been incredible, and all our partners have seen very strong bookings for Spring Break and March.

“All of them are trending above what they have forecast, so we’re going to end up with a very strong March and April. The future outlook is very strong too. We met last week with all the airline partners last week at Routes Americas and all were saying the same thing.

“All of them were very pleased with the destination and its performance, so we’re very pleased across the board, especially on the heels of that travel advisory when all the members were hit and we were like: ‘My goodness. What’s going to happen?” This is a very good position for us to all find ourselves in.”

Mrs Jibrilu voiced relief that the global news cycle has moved on quickly to other stories, and that most persons appeared to have short memories when it came to recent crime-related coverage of The Bahamas.

She praised the private and public sectors for working in tandem to counter the negative fall-out.

“All of us were sending out messages, our hotel and industry partners, that we all look after our guests as well as we can and, as a result of that, incidents against guests in the destination tend to be low,” she added.

The Nassau/Paradise Island Promotion Board, yesterday unveiling some data on early 2024 performance, said there had been a 50 percent year-over-year increase in visits to its website with a total of 3.1m visits for the year so far.

There was also a 36 percent increase in new users year-over-year, with some 2.4m new users finding its website, and a four percent rise in link outs to member websites numbering 497,000 year-to-date. “Fingers crossed, but if we continue as we’re going I think we’ll see great numbers for the destination.

“We need it, we really do,” Mrs Jibrilu said.

Robert Sands, the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association’s (BHTA) pres- ident, recently told Tribune Business that The Bahamas has withstood earlier negative international media coverage of its crime woes and US/Canadian travel warnings with bookings for the upcoming Easter period and winter tourism peak “meeting or exceeding the expectations” of many resorts.

While acknowledging that the negative perceptions created by such coverage never completely dissipate, he added that he is confident The Bahamas “can trump” any fall-out by providing visitors with such high-quality experiences that they will continue to recommend the destination to family and friends.

And, asserting that tourism’s benefits are “not Nassau-centric”, Mr Sands said the two days he and other BHTA executives spent in the company of Eleuthera resort executives showed that “they are very bullish” on current and near-term business prospects for the sector.

The BHTA president added: “Booking pace, and bookings, for Easter are very strong, meeting or exceeding expectations in some cases.

March has always traditionally been the strongest month of the year, and I think a number of hotels are exceeding those projections.

“The Bahamas brand remains strong and vibrant, and it has withstood some of the headwinds it received earlier in the year. “The first quarter was always going to be very strong, and we continue to work on the second quarter for its growth. It’s trending in the right direction.

“I’m hearing that not only from hoteliers on New Providence but in areas like Abaco, Eleuthera, Exuma and Andros, which are some of the fastest growing islands in terms of tourist activity.

“I can tell you having just spent two days visiting with hoteliers [on Eleuthera] they are very bullish about business they are seeing currently until they close their doors towards the latter part of the year.”

Mr Sands said Bahamian resorts are continuing to enjoy increased visitor lengths of stay and higher average daily room rates (ADRs) but added that occupancy improvements are relatively small heading into Easter because many properties were already performing at a high level. He added that “revenue management and convert- ing to the bottom line” has become more critical.

The BHTA president also asserted “there’s no question” that the resort industry is now exceeding pre-COVID numbers with stopover visitor arrivals at year-end 2023 exceeding 2019 comparatives.

“We would have exceeded the 2019 position at the end of 2023,” Mr Sands said.

“We’re not seeing the deep valleys and hills that we’ve seen in years past. While there are still hills and valleys, they are not as distinct and pronounced as in years past.

“All of that will contribute to a year most hotel operators will be happy with. All of these things largely strengthen The Bahamas’ brand and generate the positive momentum and spend to the industry,” said Sands.