There were so many complaints from travel agents, regular visitors,winter residents, hotel owners,businesses and other sectors of the economy that imposing very harsh entry requirements would have a devastating effect. This was worsened because visitors could still go to many other resort destination countries with far fewer entry requirements. However the old and present Tourism Ministers brushed all criticism aside so we received far fewer tourist numbers. Now we see the result of their ill thought out policies.

Speaking to a travel agency owner in Canada he said that travel agents are now very reluctant to book people to Sandals Resorts in The Bahamas. There has been no satisfactory explanation of what happened and Sandals itself remains mostly silent. There is no idea what,if anything, that Sandals is doing to prevent further such incidents. After a huge number of initial news story headlines overseas "Go to The Bahamas and Die" there have been no reassuring follow up stories. All so sad for Exuma and for our country.

We should be proud of our longstanding association with The Crown. The stability of our Constitutional Monarchy with its finely balanced system of a freely elected Parliament, a sound British-based legal system and an impartial Bahamian Governor-General guarantees our freedom. It is the best basis to attract much needed international investment. The world is full of failed third world republics where politicians take total control and the whole system crashes. Why should we join that club? Barbados was no example of how to become a republic. It was a rushed move with no public consultation and no referendum to seek the voters' approval. P.M. Mia Mottley completely ignored those opposing her move including two opinion polls indicating the public would vote against her republic. Even the ceremony initiating it was closed to the public. Sadly Communist China has been increasing its influence in Barbados to an alarming extent.

Unless our Government abolishes the time consuming Health Visa and the 3 day old rapid antigen test we can never fully recover in tourist numbers. More and more countries are dropping their restrictions -some of whom were nowhere as severe as ours- so tourists are going to those places rather than bother with all our hassles. We have been the big losers by these anti-visitor policies.

Until our Government abolishes the Health Visa and health tests which are expensive and time consuming we shall never recover the tourism numbers of before COVID19. They have been great deterrents to travel here. There has been massive criticism for nearly two years of The Bahamas being one of the most difficult countries in the world to enter but both Governments refused to budge. They were making money along with those associated with the payment system. But now there is really no excuse as nearly everywhere else has dropped restrictive entry requirements.

We are very grateful for Her Majesty's 70 years of dedicated service to The Commonwealth. Our Constitutional Monarchy is our democratic foundation. We are the envy of many other nations. Our free Parliament,. our judicial system, our impartial Governor-General all make our country a very reliable place in which to invest. We must keep a system which works well.

We need a clear and definitive statement from the Government about the actual cause of death of the visitors. The international publicity for our country has been very negative. It cannot be swept under the carpet in the hope that the matter will just go away. Where is the professionalism in the way this public relations disaster has been conducted?

Until we remove the rapid antigen 3 day before entry test and the Health Visa we will never attract the pre-Covid 19 numbers of visitors. Many people do not have the time or will to go through all the expensive and time consuming hassles just to travel to our country for a short holiday. There are too many other resort destinations with far easier entry rules. We continue to hurt ourselves and our economy. But Government refuses to listen to all the legitimate complaints from travel professionals and visitors. We are the losers by these policies.

Many of the issues which Patrick Rahming has made are valid. We have become too dependent on large hotel chains and cruise visitors who contribute very little to our economy. Our foolishly difficult entry rules over the past two years have driven many visitors-including previous regular visitors- to go elsewhere where it has been far easier to enter. Big chains like Sandls have,I was told by Canadians, never advertise their Bahamas resorts now but publicity for other resorts in our neighbouring countries. How we will ever recover all the tourism and goodwill previously generated because of our entry policies remains to be seen. A first step would be to abolish the cumbersome Health Visa and its required tests and go back to the winning formulas of the past. Whether Government listens is uncertain. They need a new strategy very quickly.

The money was well spent. The international publicity was tremendously beneficial to The Bahamas. Seeing all the beautiful scenes in our country and the friendly welcome of Bahamians has been a great boost to our tourism product internationally and reaching countries in The Commonwealth who had little or no idea about what our country offered to visitors.