Monday, April 14th, 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen, Good evening. In less than three weeks we will mark the first year of this government’s term in office.  The year has been filled with rewards and challenges and tonight it is most appropriate for me to report to you on the state of our number one industry.

Since 9/11 this critical industry has been in the midst of the greatest challenge and crisis since WW II.

The economies of many nations are in peril; the competition for the visitor’s investment of time and money has never been greater.

But despite the challenges let me say that The Bahamas is truly blessed by Providence, and the proof is in yesterday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal.

In a front-page story, the Journal reported that while war and the sudden acute respiratory syndrome have forced many to abandon travel plans ……there are boom times in The Bahamas.

The headline in one of America’s most important and influential newspapers said it all…The Bahamas is about 45 minutes by air from Miami and three hours from New York, and it quoted Howard Karawan, executive vice president of Sun International who noted that while calls to the reservation center declined when the bombs started to fall on Iraq, business is up again and the company expects the first quarter figures for this year to be better than last.

The Wall Street Journal is good news for our country. The story is consistent with the message that we have been telling the world about our country and it also speaks to the great relations we have with our industry partners.

This is why I am here to report that The Bahamas is proactively and aggressively heralding the word that we are a great vacation and business investment.

I am here to report that The MOT offices are working with every major travel agent and tour operator.

I am here to report that The Bahamas enjoys a very special and respected professional relationship with the media (TV, radio, cable, magazines, and newspapers) especially in the US and Canada, our largest tourism markets, and this relation-ship is driving visitors to our shores, into our hotels, restaurants and shops.

Two week ago 92 network and independent Television stations from the US and Canada came to our island to talk about the weather.  While other destinations sit idle, we are proactive, aggressive and seen a global innovator and leader in tourism.

I am here to report that in the fall of this year, we will launch a major new advertising campaign designed to drive further awareness of The Bahamas as a global leader in tourism and to drive even more visitors to our islands.

First we are blessed with proximity to our largest market (the US).  We are perceived as a comfort zone, a familiar friend, a safe haven and warm destination – both with the weather and the friendliness of our people.  They bring their families, their children and loved ones here

We are accessible via air and sea, easy to get to and easy to get along with.

We have more cruise ships visiting our shores than ever before, bringing in more than 2 million visitors.  We have more air service than ever before and have seen new and increased service from Washington, DC, Detroit, Atlanta and Miami.

We have seen world-renowned companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars into our nation based on our reputation as good business partner and as a great destination. These companies include The Four Seasons in Exuma and The Starwood Group in Grand Bahama who now operate the Our Lucaya property under the Westin and Sheraton brand.

The world loves our food, our music and our culture. This is why we recently sponsored the very successful Heritage Festival, which brought Bahamian artisans, artists, and tradition bearers to Nassau for five days in a mass celebration of Bahamian culture. For five days and nights visitors and Bahamians in the thousands were exposed to Bahamian story telling, folk dancing, junkanoo craft, straw craft food craft and all those interesting elements that define who we are as a people.  Heritage Festival reminded us of our past and it showed us how we can infuse our tourism product with things Bahamians.

We will promote more festivals like the Heritage Festival; in fact we will create a festival calendar beginning with the restaging of Junkanoo in June.  You would be aware that we have integrated Junkanoo into the Tourism promotion and marketing.  The Ministry has taken Junkanoo to festivals throughout the United States and will include Junkanoo in our new promotional thrust.  Junkanoo is unique  and it is Bahamian.

Let’s look at Tourism’s performance so far for 2003.

Foreign arrivals are up 3.9 % to the end of February for The Bahamas overall from 735,570  visitors in 2002 to 764,166  in 2003 and have a continuing
strong growth in March despite Easter being in April this year.

Air arrivals are encouraging with a 3.8 percent growth in these first two months, by some 8,000 visitors from 215,295 air visitors in 2002 to 223,402 visitors at the end of February 2003.

In Nassau, air arrivals grew by 2.9% bringing good news to the hotels on Nassau/Paradise Island.   I am told that room revenue in the larger hotels in Nassau increased by some 8.8 percent, largely because in these difficult times the hoteliers have, in the main, resisted the temptation to cut rates. They reported a $198 average daily room at the end of February this is almost $20 above the $180 rate recorded in 2002.

Furthermore, my officers have polled these hotels and said they have indicated that revenue projections for January to May 2003, revenues could be about five percent above 2002 levels.

Air arrivals to Grand Bahama Island at the end of February recorded a one percent increase over 2002, mostly due to a slow February.  January air arrivals had been up 12.6% over 2002 but in February they fell by 7.2%.  Air arrivals to The Family Islands showed the greatest growth in The Bahamas from January through February of 2002 with a 15.6% increase in air arrivals.

Sea arrivals mostly cruise visitors, increased by 3.9% with The Family Islands shouldering most of this increase as 44,000 more visitors travelled to our islands by sea through the end of February. On the other hand, sea arrivals in Nassau and Grand Bahama Island fell by 7.3% and 4.8%, indicating a real need in the near term to address product problems in the Nassau/Paradise Island and Grand Bahama.

I was particularly encouraged as I am sure were the cruise line executives, when, in their presence, the Prime Minister at the opening of the Welcome Centre, indicated the Government’s commitment to take action immediately to provide the kind of experience the cruise visitor expects from a destination ---- the kind of experience that will generate more revenue for Bahamians, once delivered.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a beautiful country.  We also have a well- developed tourism product; although we have not always been careful of the way we treat this product. We know this because our industry partners tell us this. We need to pay more attention to the up-keep of our tourism product.  “ We must get rid of tacky tourism.”

This is why we are going to be putting stronger emphasis on product improvement with the strengthening of the
Product development division within the Ministry of Tourism.

The new product Development Division will view the visitor’s vacation in the Islands of the Bahamas as the delivery of multiple experiences from reception to departure, with each individual experience having the potential to ensure the satisfaction and loyalty of that visitor. Where there is dissatisfaction or resistance to the tourism product experience, the objective of our newly refined and dynamic product department will be to reinforce positive visitor experience and eliminate all negative interactions between Bahamians and visitors.

The new product will be structured to allow for competent tourism teams to focus on several areas of concern as well as the creation of a calendar of events that will contribute to positive experiences.

The new product department’s responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

· The upgrading of all reception and departure facilities and ports.

· The upgrading and maintenance of all points of interest and public facilities used by visitors and

These include Fort Charlotte, Fort Fincastle, The Queens Staircase, Potters Cay, the Western Esplanade and the Arawak Cay Fish Fry.

· The oversight of the activities on all beaches, specifically vendors, Jet Ski operators and braiders.

· The expansion of the People To People program.

· The development of a Language Center to facilitate information for non English speaking visitors

· The development of a comprehensive signage program, both directional and informational.

· The encouragement of more Bahamian music and entertainment being heard and exposed in more public places throughout The Bahamas.

My fellow Bahamians, this reconfiguration of our tourism product started two weeks ago with the opening of Festival Place on Prince George Dock.

Festival Place compares favorably with some of the best cruise welcome centers in the region. It will be the home for authentically Bahamian made art and craft items and the early response from our forty-seven vendors and cruise visitors tells us that it is already a success. It is clean and inviting and we intend to keep it that way.

Festival Place and the welcome center also provide for an orderly reception for the more than two million visitors who come by cruise ships   and it is only reasonable to expect that there should be more control and order to the way we welcome our visitors.

The reception and welcome for our visitors at Nassau International Airport and Prince George still leaves much to be desired. There is much too much freelance activity going on which leaves our visitors with the impression that they are being hustled.

The reconfiguration of Bay Street and the downtown and port area will continue with the implementation of a redevelopment program that would involve an ongoing cleanup and beautification program.

 Fellow Bahamians, surveys conducted by the Ministry of Tourism show that the visitor likes our people and our product – two solid assets in a world of change, but we should avoid being smug or complacent.
But I caution all those involved – the taxi drivers, the retailers, the straw vendors, the hair braiders, the surrey drivers, the jitney drivers and anyone else coming into contact with all our visitors to appreciate that our efforts must be in harmony.  Only together will we enjoy the opportunities and the benefits that the tourism industry can bring.

I am very pleased to be able to say that within nine months of my administration, Grand Bahama Island’s tourism has been refocused and repositioned to survive and thrive in the period of recovery ahead.  We have achieved the following:

1. The strengthening of the Ministry of Tourism’s office on Grand Bahama Island, so that we now lead the development of tourism on that island, working closely with and not submerged within the private sector.  We have put in place the airlift infrastructure required to support the vastly increased new hotel inventory with new scheduled service from gateways like Philadelphia and Baltimore coming on stream this winter and being added to the Charlotte, Atlanta and New York services that were started a year earlier.

2. We have convinced the owners of the previous and mostly unknown “Our Lucaya Beach and Golf Resort” to repositioned that resort to enable it to succeed.

3.  On February 6 of this year, two of the world’s best name brands, raised their flags on Grand Bahama Island for the first time with the previous Our Lucaya Resort becoming the world’s newest Westin and Sheraton Resorts.  This move strengthens the appeal of this resort to global travelers who are familiar with and loyal to those new brands.  In addition, we are in
the advance stages of processing the application for the long awaited new casino at Lucaya to commence operations.  We are targeting a summer opening and an announcement by the operator in this regard is expected shortly.

4. We have developed with the Royal Oasis, a new airlift strategy that will improve their market penetration and repositioned their previous “Charter-type” operation to a true scheduled service that will broaden the distribution and increase sources of business to the entire island.  This transition is scheduled for summer of this year.

5. Bahamians and visitors alike would have seen much more entertainment and events taking place on Grand Bahama that begins to create the level of excitement we feel is needed to boost tourism to Grand Bahama Island.  International and top Bahamian acts such as the T-Connections return and Baha Men have already occurred with others to follow.

We have brought a number of sporting events to GBI already, such as the American Power Boat Race last October, the Tournament De Las Americas (or Latin American PGA championship) in January of this year and the World Flag Football Championship in February.  The Caribbean Amateur Championship is slated to come in June and as I speak we are in
negotiations that should result in a healthy schedule of sporting and entertainment events that will drive tourism to GBI especially during what was regarded as the “soft months” for tourist traffic.

In summary, I can state that we have now stabilized tourism to Grand Bahama as the arrivals since the first of this year would show.

Grand Bahama made an everlasting impression on hundreds of travel agents and tourism professionals who assembled on that island last October.  The employees of the hotel, the taxi drivers, immigration, customs and police all worked together to provide Grand Bahama with the re-launch that it so badly needed.  I wish to thank all who made our hosting the conference a wonderful experience.

Grand Bahama will now have a fifth industry after tourism, financial services, light manufacturing and transshipping, following the completion of a contract between the government and Gold Rock Creek Enterprise to build a seventy million dollar studio and entertainment complex at the former missile tracking station in High Rock.

The investment will create at least twelve hundred new jobs over the life of the contract.

The investment will put Grand Bahama in the same league with production centers like Orlando, South Beach in Miami and Toronto, Canada, and when they start to rotate movies and television projects through the facility, we will see a steady flow of media and personalities that are drawn to this industry and which will have positive spin off for the image of Grand Bahama.

I was pleased to sit and watch the premier of TNT’s movie “Framed”, parts of which was shot on Paradise Island at Atlantis.  No doubt The Bahamas will benefit significantly from the exposure of such events.  We look forward to an announcement of a major production to be shot in The Bahamas beginning this summer.

With all the developments Grand Bahama is now poised to become the newest and brightest star in tourism in the region as we simultaneously take steps to improve the visitor experience throughout the entire island.

My Ministry has been coordinating our strategic planning over the past three weeks in close collaboration with the private sector to ensure that we maximize the flow of business to The Islands of The Bahamas during this challenging period.  I can advise that we have experienced minimal levels of cancellations to date and for the month of March through Easter, we appear to be holding our own on both volumes of business as well as yield.

We are pleased with the progress and the expected impact of the Four Seasons Hotel project in Great Exuma, we are still convinced that a great part of the future of tourism in the Family Island will belong to the small Bahamian entrepreneur operating five – ten room villas, guest houses and fishing.

This is one of the principal and compelling reasons; visitors go to Abaco, Exuma, Andros, Harbour Island, Bimini and Eleuthera.  They want to experience that quaint island charm and interpersonal contact that our people are so expert at, the kind that Bill Gates expects and receives in Harbour Island and the Exuma Cays, on a regular basis.

This is why the administration will encourage more Bahamians to become stake holders in our major industry, and this is why we were so pleased with the recently concluded agreement between the government and the Organization of Americas State, regarding a project that would provide small hotel owners and operators with hands on training in hotel operation and marketing.

Bahamians who want to become involved in this industry and who perhaps may have come from other professions before investing in guest houses or fishing lodges, can now access information on how to create a website, how to set up front desk operations or how to select the right staff for their business.

And this is what tourism is really all about.  It is about selecting the right people and putting them in the right place to do the right job.

It now appears as though the conflict in the Middle East will be resolved in the very near term with economic recovery in our major markets expected to follow.

As we look ahead, we must all strive to be the best that we can be.  Our product is our people, the experience we deliver, and the memories we create.

We are all representatives of The Bahamas, we are all a public relations force of one that creates lasting impressions on our guests, impressions that will determine if they will return, recommend us to friends and family, and contribute to the overall reputation of our great nation.