2. Banks and other investors will finance hotels since they will know a market demand is now guaranteed as people who wish to come to the Bahamas now must do so via hotel.
3. Likely other places will follow, just like we'd be following Key West.
The rest will take care of itself. The "Bahamas" is the product, not commercial parks as such. People who want parks will go to Orlando or Las Vegas, that isn't what we have to offer and they will always have better parks and attractions eg. Disney World. We need to stop selling the Bahamas on the cheap to the cruise industry for $50 or so per person in spend. This is not rocket science.
PS. If Disney wants to build an on Nassau theme park with hotels, and rides and whatever else the government should say this is something it will negotiate, but its path to the Bahamas via cruise ships should be closed by government.
Increasing taxes is not a bad idea per se, but the points you raise above which are all true, argue for a stronger dose of medicine which is disinviting the industry from further trade in the Bahamas. If all islands kicked them out, then by definition all tourists would spend that which land based guests do as there would be no cruise option to create very low "on island" spends, and not everyone wants to go to Orlando or Las Vegas so many many would visit with hotel stays.
The high end tourists will leave and won't come back. You don't get back international reputation in an instant like this.
Further, this assumes complaints would be acted on, and likely someone in government would talk about how their hands are tied due to prior agreements etc.
Ruin very high dollar per tourism to Harbour Island for a few t-shirt sales and departure taxes? Horrible idea.
Look folks, either the Bahamas becomes a low rent wasteland to feed into the growth of the cruise ship industry, which will always need to consume more of the Bahamas (Lighthouse Beach, now Harbour Island) OR the Bahamas says bye bye to the cruise ships and we get on with LESS tourists who spend vastly MORE per tourist and we end up with net more jobs, less environmental impact and control of our number one industry.
What's it going to be?
The fiction there can be "both" cruise industry + land based tourism clearly is not realistic any more.
Too late to have this debate, once all the product we have less to sell to land based tourists is gone! (eg. Lighthouse beach gone, no high end tourists going to Harbour Island anymore, and the hotels become permanently down market)
Where is the discussion about would the Bahamas be better off without a cruise industry where tourists instead all visited with land based hotel stays? Once you take this aspect of the issue off the table, all is basically lost.
How is partnership possible with an industry specifically designed around the notion of putting itself above all meaningful regulation by any state? It specifically is designed to grow and push aside the power of national governments to regulate or tax it.
In this respect it is not like a hotel operator the Bahamas can truely partner with. The more the cruise industry grows the more the power of the Bahamas to shape its own destiny reduces.
10,000 daily passengers and how does the Bahamas make money off them? Simple, ban the cruise ships, and 2,000 or so of them will visit as hotel guests producing vastly higher revenue to the Bahamas. Wow, wish all problems were this easy to solve. Then we can skip cruise line critiques of Nassau.
The French islands bar them (cruise ships) for a reason. Its a fool's errand to chase ever more volume with ever less spend on island. Better to just focus on fewer tourists spending vastly more per visitor than chase declining returns while all the while the nation loses negotiating power with the cruise lines. After they own 90% of the Caribbean tourism market you will be a country in name only and have to take what crumbs they decide we should get. We need a strong hotel tourism industry under Bahamian regulation its the only way the tourism product can be protected and allowed to bring in the high spends per visitor the country needs.
Limiting is a good idea, but our workers can not fairly compete with overseas cruise workers who have no union and get like $2/hour. So its unfair competition. And the cruise lines pay no tax, dump at sea etc. So its unfair competition and very non sustainable. Better solution is just to bar them totally. Then the private sector will invest in more hotels without cruise lines to compete against them.
Even if you captured more of that $50, made it $60, made it $70 its still a horrible equation for the Bahamas to be in. Get rid of the equation. Kick out the cruise ships and we'll see more overnight visitors and get the $1000 yields this country needs to run itself without going into endless default and dispair and disrepair.
If tourists can't visit the Bahamas by cruise ship, some significant portion of them will visit the Bahamas by overnight hotel stay. That is why throwing them out would help the Bahamas. Looked another way, what has decades of increasing cruise ship sizes and numbers got us? $10 billion or so in debt. The yield per cruise ship visitor even multiplied times infinity is not enough to run the Bahamas, the math does not add up. The main product the Bahamas has to sell is warm sun and sand and it makes no sense to sell it on the cheap! Building museums, theatres all the rest of it will not make material, game changing differences, tho at the margins its not a bad idea.
Maybe what Nassau needs is to rethink the entire permission of the cruise industry to come to the Bahamas. Then with the greater revenues it receives from visitors staying on hotels and greater employment from Bahamians working at hotels it will have the funds to regenerate itself. And if it doesn't, and all the tourists want to do is stay in their hotels and go to the beach, then you know what, fine, at least the Bahamas will have more money.
concerned799 says...
1. Ban Cruise Ships
2. Banks and other investors will finance hotels since they will know a market demand is now guaranteed as people who wish to come to the Bahamas now must do so via hotel.
3. Likely other places will follow, just like we'd be following Key West.
The rest will take care of itself. The "Bahamas" is the product, not commercial parks as such. People who want parks will go to Orlando or Las Vegas, that isn't what we have to offer and they will always have better parks and attractions eg. Disney World. We need to stop selling the Bahamas on the cheap to the cruise industry for $50 or so per person in spend. This is not rocket science.
PS. If Disney wants to build an on Nassau theme park with hotels, and rides and whatever else the government should say this is something it will negotiate, but its path to the Bahamas via cruise ships should be closed by government.
On Minister issues challenge: Develop ‘projects of scale’
Posted 30 March 2021, 3:27 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Increasing taxes is not a bad idea per se, but the points you raise above which are all true, argue for a stronger dose of medicine which is disinviting the industry from further trade in the Bahamas. If all islands kicked them out, then by definition all tourists would spend that which land based guests do as there would be no cruise option to create very low "on island" spends, and not everyone wants to go to Orlando or Las Vegas so many many would visit with hotel stays.
On $400m passenger spend rise targeted by port chief
Posted 26 March 2021, 9:58 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
The high end tourists will leave and won't come back. You don't get back international reputation in an instant like this.
Further, this assumes complaints would be acted on, and likely someone in government would talk about how their hands are tied due to prior agreements etc.
On Harbour Island resorts oppose cruising plans
Posted 15 March 2021, 9:21 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Worst idea ever!
Ruin very high dollar per tourism to Harbour Island for a few t-shirt sales and departure taxes? Horrible idea.
Look folks, either the Bahamas becomes a low rent wasteland to feed into the growth of the cruise ship industry, which will always need to consume more of the Bahamas (Lighthouse Beach, now Harbour Island) OR the Bahamas says bye bye to the cruise ships and we get on with LESS tourists who spend vastly MORE per tourist and we end up with net more jobs, less environmental impact and control of our number one industry.
What's it going to be?
The fiction there can be "both" cruise industry + land based tourism clearly is not realistic any more.
Too late to have this debate, once all the product we have less to sell to land based tourists is gone! (eg. Lighthouse beach gone, no high end tourists going to Harbour Island anymore, and the hotels become permanently down market)
On Harbour Island resorts oppose cruising plans
Posted 15 March 2021, 9:16 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Where is the discussion about would the Bahamas be better off without a cruise industry where tourists instead all visited with land based hotel stays? Once you take this aspect of the issue off the table, all is basically lost.
How is partnership possible with an industry specifically designed around the notion of putting itself above all meaningful regulation by any state? It specifically is designed to grow and push aside the power of national governments to regulate or tax it.
In this respect it is not like a hotel operator the Bahamas can truely partner with. The more the cruise industry grows the more the power of the Bahamas to shape its own destiny reduces.
10,000 daily passengers and how does the Bahamas make money off them? Simple, ban the cruise ships, and 2,000 or so of them will visit as hotel guests producing vastly higher revenue to the Bahamas. Wow, wish all problems were this easy to solve. Then we can skip cruise line critiques of Nassau.
On Minister tells cruise lines: ‘Don’t dump’ on Nassau
Posted 5 March 2021, 2:51 a.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
The French islands bar them (cruise ships) for a reason. Its a fool's errand to chase ever more volume with ever less spend on island. Better to just focus on fewer tourists spending vastly more per visitor than chase declining returns while all the while the nation loses negotiating power with the cruise lines. After they own 90% of the Caribbean tourism market you will be a country in name only and have to take what crumbs they decide we should get. We need a strong hotel tourism industry under Bahamian regulation its the only way the tourism product can be protected and allowed to bring in the high spends per visitor the country needs.
On Carnival chief: Nassau needs more than port
Posted 26 February 2021, 5:01 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Limiting is a good idea, but our workers can not fairly compete with overseas cruise workers who have no union and get like $2/hour. So its unfair competition. And the cruise lines pay no tax, dump at sea etc. So its unfair competition and very non sustainable. Better solution is just to bar them totally. Then the private sector will invest in more hotels without cruise lines to compete against them.
On Carnival chief: Nassau needs more than port
Posted 26 February 2021, 4:55 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Yield per overnight tourist is around $1000
Yield per cruise ship visitor is around $50
Even if you captured more of that $50, made it $60, made it $70 its still a horrible equation for the Bahamas to be in. Get rid of the equation. Kick out the cruise ships and we'll see more overnight visitors and get the $1000 yields this country needs to run itself without going into endless default and dispair and disrepair.
On Carnival chief: Nassau needs more than port
Posted 26 February 2021, 4:53 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
If tourists can't visit the Bahamas by cruise ship, some significant portion of them will visit the Bahamas by overnight hotel stay. That is why throwing them out would help the Bahamas. Looked another way, what has decades of increasing cruise ship sizes and numbers got us? $10 billion or so in debt. The yield per cruise ship visitor even multiplied times infinity is not enough to run the Bahamas, the math does not add up. The main product the Bahamas has to sell is warm sun and sand and it makes no sense to sell it on the cheap! Building museums, theatres all the rest of it will not make material, game changing differences, tho at the margins its not a bad idea.
On Carnival chief: Nassau needs more than port
Posted 26 February 2021, 4:50 p.m. Suggest removal
concerned799 says...
Maybe what Nassau needs is to rethink the entire permission of the cruise industry to come to the Bahamas. Then with the greater revenues it receives from visitors staying on hotels and greater employment from Bahamians working at hotels it will have the funds to regenerate itself. And if it doesn't, and all the tourists want to do is stay in their hotels and go to the beach, then you know what, fine, at least the Bahamas will have more money.
On Carnival chief: Nassau needs more than port
Posted 25 February 2021, 12:29 a.m. Suggest removal