Tourism is the primary business only of banana republics. That kind of boom and bust business is not what the Bahamas needs as its structural spine. You need high tech. Clean high tech. You need software developers and other kinds of high tech development. A good high tech worker earns the same as 4-6 tourism industry workers. You cannot get into high tech as a nation by telling established high tech firms that they MUST hire locally. It's asinine to think otherwise. Bahamas cannot tell Apple where to get off the bus! BUT if Bahamas was friendly toward high tech then MANY high salary high tech will want to move there to take advantage of depression prices on canal front property. They can live like kings for pennies on the dollar in the Bahamas and they would spend their hefty wages improving their lifestyle there, building and buying and employing the locals. Eventually the smartest locals would prove themselves worthy to work at these same companies and local hiring for the high tech positions would take place at a measure pace. But Bahamian government thinks it can demand immediate hiring without any demonstration of local high tech skills and that is just laughable. everyone has to pay their dues. Everyone has to walk before they can run. No exceptions.

I work in US high tech. I have been to the Bahamas 30+ times in my life, generally on bareboat charters. I would love to live there on canal front lot during my working years but the silly work permit rules stop me from doing it. I make deep 6 figures in USD. I spend that money in the USA right now. I would love to spend more of it in the Bahamas but cronyistic rules that sound good but which are not helpful to the average Bahamian citizen (and in fact quite the contrary) prevent me from living and working in the islands which are like a 2nd home to me. You have NO idea how rapidly growth would pick up, jobs would pick up if silly government with fake liberal ideals were pushed aside to allow the most productive people in the world to come live, work and play in the Bahamas instead of maintaining the current exclusionary "Bahamas for Bahamians" foolishness. Bahamian government cannot make up its own rules and expect the world to just accept them. The tail does not wag the dog. There is no need for me to prove this because after all these decades of cruddy growth and low paying and no clean high tech (like software companies) in the Bahamas it must now be self evident to everyone EXCEPT those who are benefiting personally from the crony capitalism that these policies do not work for the betterment of the average Bahamian. It's time to wake up and get leadership that understands that tourism is not a very good main occupation. It is boom and bust and even when booming it creates low paying service sector jobs. It's hard to improve the labor force if the only experience the people have is selling trinkets at the straw market and asking customers if they want fries with their burgers. The politicians will not change this until the people demand that they do so.