|
 |
|
Caribbean Tourism Organisation Secretary General Vincent Vanderpool Wallace |
Speaking with the Bahama Journal from Puerto Rico, Caribbean Tourism Organisation Secretary General and former Bahamas Director General of Tourism Vincent Vanderpool Wallace pointed out that the softness in visitor arrivals is not unique to The Bahamas, as other destinations in the region have recently experienced similar results.
Placing The Bahamas’ visitor arrival numbers into context, Mr. Vanderpool Wallace said the totals reflect that the tourism industry is still performing well.
"Most of the reduction if not all of it is the result of double counting erroneously cruise passengers," he said.
"The Bahamas is somewhat unique in the region in not double counting cruise visitors. A number of the cruise passengers…are in fact the same passengers going from country to country to country."
If The Bahamas counted as a separate visitor arrival each visit to a Family Island destination by a visitor who travelled to more than one island in the archipelago during his or her trip the country’s total visitor arrivals would be far in excess of five million, he noted.
The CTO secretary general pointed out that despite the unfavourable result of fewer total visitor arrivals there was still some good news for the region, as some travellers – still highly interested in the region – found creative ways of getting to the Caribbean.
"You would have seen in the press that cruise companies were reporting some softness in the Caribbean for some time," he said.
"This past winter period they had a significant softening in cruise passengers coming into the Caribbean. That in fact was made up substantially by spring breakers who didn’t have passports and decided to go on their Caribbean vacation by getting on a cruise ship for which they didn’t need passports."
In order to help reverse the trend of declining visitor arrivals, The Bahamas and its neighbours should take various remedial measures like increasing advertising, Mr. Vanderpool Wallace suggested.
Those efforts, he said, should be collaborative.
"People really have themselves aligned behind a specific itinerary so depending on what all is included in that itinerary, how long you want to be away and how much you want to spend that really determines where you go to," he said.
"So without question we’re talking about a regional approach as opposed to a country by country approach, although The Bahamas again is unique in the sense that there are cruise passengers that go only to The Bahamas."
Mr. Vanderpool Wallace said The Bahamas, therefore, has the option of adopting a singular approach as opposed to the regional approach which other countries in the region would most likely have to take.
He also expressed confidence that the two-year falloff would not have a great impact on the economy.
That prediction is consistent with the Ministry of Tourism’s findings.
The Ministry reported at the time of releasing the new arrivals numbers just over a week ago that visitor expenditure remained strong in 2005 and 2006, holding stable at around $2 billion each year.
