By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas will likely endure “subdued” stopover visitor numbers in 2025, a major bank has warned, with a former tourism minister yesterday urging the nation to “go back to the drawing board” in this segment.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, speaking after the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general revealed that stopover or land-based visitor numbers were around 4 percent down for the 2025 first quarter, told Tribune Business “that for whatever reason we’re not attracting a growing number of stopover visitors” and this is being reflected in The Bahamas’ slowing economic growth now the post-COVID recovery has been completed.

Latia Duncombe’s report on the three months to end-March 2025 also reflects the just-released April 2025 Caribbean Market Overview by CIBC, the Canadian-owned bank with extensive operations in The Bahamas, which noted that stopover arrivals for January and February were off 2.9 percent compared to 2024 levels.

This followed a year when stopover tourist arrivals were essentially flat with 2023, falling just 0.2 percent to 1.7m arrivals. Mr D’Aguilar, though, challenged whether the flat to slightly declining stopover visitor numbers are a function of insufficient room inventory, as his successor, Chester Cooper, has frequently asserted or a sign of lower demand and more fundamental, deep-rooted issues with the Bahamian tourism product. 

“I think that, for whatever reason, we’re not attracting a growing number of stopover visitors. The growth in that area is extremely anemic,” he told this newspaper. “One has to ask the question: Why?.... We all know that Atlantis has made a conscious decision not to open the Beach Towers. Four hundred to six hundred rooms are sitting empty.

“They’ve left them with no intent of opening them. If demand was off the page it would make sense to open those rooms. They’ve obviously made a conscious business decision it’s more cost effective to keep those rooms shut down.”

Vaughn Roberts, Atlantis’ senior vice-president of government affairs and special projects, could not be reached for comment before press time last night, but the Paradise Island mega resort previously unveiled plans for Grammy Award-winning musician and producer, Pharrell Williams, and his business partner David Grutman, to transform the Beach Towers into a resort called somewhere else.

That has yet to happen, but Tribune Business last year reported that VICI Properties, the owner of Las Vegas mega resorts such as Caesars Palace, MGM Grand and the Venetian, was in talks with Atlantis owner, Brookfield Asset Management, about a deal that could involve redevelopment of the Beach Towers.

Mr D’Aguilar, meanwhile, acknowledging the potentially chilling effect that lingering uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs may have on US demand for a Bahamian vacation, said the inability to consistently grow stopover visitor numbers significantly above pre-COVID levels was restricting Bahamian gross domestic product (GDP) growth to the presently-forecast 1.8 percent for 2025.

“This has been a recurring problem post-COVID,” he told Tribune Business. “We haven’t been able to tap into what is necessary or what we have to do to grow the most economically impactful component of our tourism arrivals. This is the challenge. Clearly, what we have been doing has not been working. I think we have to go back to the drawing board.”

Stopover visitors are greatly prized by the Bahamian tourism industry because, on average, they spend 28 times’ more and stay far longer than their cruise counterparts. While the latter are The Bahamas’ volume tourism business, stopover visitors have by far the greater economic impact in terms of the jobs and activity they support.

CIBC, in its Caribbean market overview, ranked The Bahamas’ 4 percent stopover visitor contraction as placing this nation among the lowest tourism performers in the region in early 2025. Only Grenada was faring worse during January and February, with most other islands showing marginal growth in this category.

“After exceeding pre-pandemic levels in 2023, air passenger arrivals slipped 0.2 percent to 1.7m visitors in 2024, suppressed by a 0.6 percent decline to New Providence, which represented 77 percent of the total. Arrivals to Family Islands also fell (marginally), but arrivals to Grand Bahama rose 8.7 percent,” CIBC said of The Bahamas’ 2024 tourism performance.

“In contrast, total departures (net of domestic passengers) rose 2.6 percent, with departures to the US - around 87 percent of the total - up 2.4 percent, and non-US departures up 3.7 percent.” As for 2025, CIBC added: “Since then, visitor arrivals in the air segment remained weak, declining 3.9 percent over January to February 2025, but sea arrivals continued to expand, growing 12.8 percent year-over-year...

“The Bahamian economy is expected to continue to expand modestly over the next few years. The IMF’s latest estimates suggest that real GDP will grow by 1.8 percent in 2025. Cruise tourism remains poised for another exceptional performance, but preliminary indicators point toward a likely subdued performance for the stay-over segment.”

Kerry Fountain, the Bahama Out Island Promotion Board’s executive director, yesterday told Tribune Business that “the competition we’re facing from the cruise industry” was likely one cause of the pressure on stopover visitor numbers given the “value for money” represented by that sector versus the higher-priced land-based vacation.

He added that Board member properties and other resorts had breathed “a sigh of relief” following the November/December 2024 uptick in room nights sold and room revenues - a trend that has continued into 2025. The Bahamian resort and tourism industry had endured “a pretty brutal” summer since July 2024 as visitor demand dropped ahead of the US presidential election.

“For the 2025 first quarter, generally speaking, our business in terms of room revenues and room nights sold is up 11 percent for that period,” Mr Fountain said. “A lot of us use the phrase ‘cautiously optimistic’. We want to delete the word ‘optimistic’, and say ‘cautious’ over the outlook for the foreseeable future. 

“We’re cautious because there are so many uncertainties from the trade and tariff wars, and not knowing how much the percentage increase or decrease will be for each country. We’re certainly cautious.”

As for the decline in stopovers, Mr Fountain added: “When we look at the slowdown and decline in stopover growth, I think it has more to do with the competition we’re facing from the cruise lines than what we’re seeing from the trade and tariff wars.

“A three-night cruise, all-inclusive with meals, transportation and lodging, is $550. I think we’re barking up the wrong tree when we start to blame it on tariffs. We have to consider what’s happening with the conversion of air passengers to cruise visitors.”

With the “majority” of The Bahamas’ visitor base unnerved by the fall-out from the Trump tariffs, and the stock market declines that have hit wealth and retirement savings, Mr Fountain said they are seeking out “value for money” and that, in the present climate, means a cruise vacation.

Robert Sands, Baha Mar’s senior vice-president of government and external affairs, told this newspaper that while resort industry occupancies are down “slightly” there is no material difference between 2024 and 2025 numbers. He added that multiple factors may be influencing this, including the timing of Easter which fell in mid to late April in 2025 compared to the prior year.

“There might be a balancing out with occupancy rates,” he added. “You cannot read into that. Yes, occupancy percentages are down slightly, but not materially, and the level of hotel rooms is roughly the same as last year” with the exception of Sandals Emerald Bay’s closure. 

“There’s multiple factors we have to continue to monitor and review. We take that in aggregate, but some hotels may have more and some may have less. We have to look at the entire picture,” Mr Sands said.