Minister of Tourism (Government of The Bahamas)

Since time immemorial, the Bahamas has attracted high-end visitors and tourism has treated the country well. However, as Cuba, for example, opens up there is increasing competition in what is already a fiercely competitive region. In your opinion, what makes the Bahamas the premier tourism destination today?

We have the advantage of our proximity to one of the more progressive countries in the world, the United States (US), and we have been able to attract 80 to 90% of our business from the US. We have a major investment in America as well because our people spend more than a billion dollars a year just shopping, so we depend so much on the US. We have a relationship and you’re not going to destroy a relationship overnight and there’s a sense of civility and the existence of US policies in regards to our tourism industry. We have, for instance, airports where visitors come in and they can get through the system without having as long lines. That’s been in place for a long period of time and the truth is that’s because of relationship. America has worked with us and I don’t think we are going to have a difficulty.

Cuba is not going to be a problem for the Bahamas, because people say it’s going to open but it is already open. Cuba is doing now more than 3 million tourist a year, the principle market is Canada of course, I think we are talking about more American tourists. There are more than 1.3 million people traveling per year, it’s what your market can sustain and the truth is that Cuba has more than 50,000 hotel rooms to fill which is more than us. We have 15,000 rooms to fill so we have a different industry.

Our challenge is how do we work with our partners, and with Cuba we already started a multi destination marketing, so you can get two for the price of one. What happens now is that many Americans come to the Bahamas and go on to Cuba. We work with the marketing now with Cuba to allow visitors coming to Bahamas to go on to Cuba or Cuba coming to the Bahamas. Cuba has history and so does the Bahamas, different types of stories. The mystique of Cuba is always going to be a draw but then we have things that Cuba doesn’t have, for example, casinos, which have contributed to build our industry. We believe that we are developing relationships with our partners, whether they are in Europe or in Asia that will help us to grow. So Cuba will have its business and its business will continue to grow but the Bahamas will also grow. I believe that of the large number of tourists that are traveling the question is what is your product, what are you offering, and how do we become competitive in a way where we can reduce the cost of the visitor coming to allow the visitor to have more when he’s here and gain more from his visit here. So we are looking at those things, for instance the taxes. There’s a tremendous amount of taxes, $80 of every ticket that is purchased in the US is taxes, so we have to talk to the authorities to see how we reduce the cost to allow more visitors to travel not only to the Bahamas but the entire region. We will never get a billion visitors, but we can be satisfied with 10 million visitors per year. We are around six millions now which is pretty good (4 million+ from cruises and rest are overnight visitors due to hotel inventory), let’s get it to 10 but why can’t Cuba have its 10 or 15 as well. So I don’t see it as competition, I see them as partners as well as the rest of the Caribbean because if you look at the region you have the Dominican Republic, that has more than 50,000 hotel rooms, you have Jamaica with more than 30,000 rooms, but they all have different offerings, and we all do, and that’s what we have to focus on.

One of the things in the Bahamas will do very soon is that we are going to take advantage of some of the technology. We are going to have a 24-hour online television station, where we will show the world who we are, provide the will to get to the destination, ensure that it is attractive enough, fulfill the needs of the visiting public, and then you will be ok.

How would you describe the country’s tourism sector today and from your perspective, how does it compare with regional standards?

We are doing pretty well right now. We gained four points in the ratings, we are number 12 in the Americas, we are number one among English-speaking CARICOM countries and in the world we are 58, so we are not too bad. The Bahamas is the Bahamas, it is and will always be a brand. We have a high-end product and the rates are high, our room occupancy levels are holding strong so it’s pretty good.

What we want to work on now is more product because we believe that we are not telling the story of our country effectively. We want people to know that there was a time of pirate and that we are a country that has been able to utilize all what God has given us and been able to build this industry. There’s the story of how Bahamians have gone from being part of a colony to have nationhood. Let’s tell the story of the role that our leader played 30 years ago when the Bahamas led the way in the release of Nelson Mandela, let’s tell the real stories of who lives in the Bahamas like James Bond, Sean Connery and Shakira. We can tell so many things and we can show so much more of what we have but we haven’t done that as effectively.

After the recession the market plummeted and we had difficulties. Our airlift was down, our cruise passenger count was down and the occupancy levels were down, so we had to get back in the game. We used sports tourism to do it. The first visitor was the Miami Heat in 2013 and it was very effective, because we had Dwayne Wade and Lebron James texting from the Bahamas and tweeting about the Bahamas, which helps you to grow your brand. We support the IAAF through sports tourism and we use those because you don’t see much of a recession in sport teams. They didn’t seem to have these difficulties because players make a lot of money, people gravitate to sports for pleasure, to relax and to get away from all that is happening, and the truth is if you can co-brand and work with them effectively, the country gets some publicity. That’s how we ended up having the golf tournament and so we have done a number of things that our competitors haven’t done in the Caribbean. They perhaps will, or don’t have the resources to it, but we have been able to do it in all the major sports, whether it’s basketball, American football, soccer, golf, etc. We have been able to take over all of those disciplines and look at their top players are going to be a part of what we do, take residence in the Bahamas like Tiger Woods. Also more importantly is the mouth of word, which is your greatest advertisement. When you leave here and tell someone what a good time you had in the Bahamas that will make other people come to the country. Word of mouth works so we have been able to attract a number of people.

So just try to be the leaders, we don’t worry about the competition, rather we let the competition worry about us. This requires innovation and in our Ministry we want to have a culture of innovation. We seek for new ideas, to push the envelope and to try new things. The hottest attraction for the European market right now is the swimming pigs in Exuma.

What we have been missing in the Bahamas is for sustainable growth and ensuring that the linkages to tourism are participating in this process, because why is it that the Bahamas import all of its bed sheets as opposed to making them? This is a focus because it means job creation. Why is the country spending 100 million dollars on ice cream every year when you can create a unique Bahamian brand of ice cream? This is what we didn’t do right, and we have to do it because tourism can grow, visitors are going to come, but you can utilize your human resources to create more of what you need to ensure that you can provide the visitor with the accommodation they require and the services they require but this requires now a paradigm shift. Look at Bay Street for instance, this is our major street. There was a time when all the activities were on Bay Street bug Atlantis changed that dramatically when they opened the marina village. Then we built malls so people walk down Bay Street now but how many brand do we have there? If you want to go shopping you will do it at the hotels or somewhere else so we have to change the carpet here and make this a better place. We are going to change Bay Street and cause it to become a shopping mecca of great shops and great restaurants. We want to make sure that people go there to get an experience that they can’t get at the hotel or in the cruise ship. If we begin to diversify our tourism industry, I believe we can be even more successful.

Tourism is integral to the growth and development of the Bahamas as it is the largest contributing sector to the GDP and employs up to 60% the Bahamian workforce. What are your main priorities at present in regards to tourism?

Cruise passengers and airlift. We are now getting more airlifts and are now discussing with some of the Legacy Carriers. If you look at the airports, we do not have much activity in the night time so we want to get more flights here in the course of the night. We have a very small number of charters right now so we want more charters and we are introducing new routes throughout the US, Asia and Europe, where we are already with major discussions with some of the main airlines.

In terms of cruises we want to get the numbers back up to become the number one in cruise. We are fixing the harbour right now and we are going through major renovations to ensure that our welcome is going to be outstanding. The bottom line here is we want to ensure that we are providing the most unique arrival and facilities, and you can do that because the cruise lines have been friends with us for many decades now and we can always work together. But you have to fix your product and then add on to your product and this is what we are doing to ensure that we are attracting more visitors. We want to make sure that when people come here they have so many things to do to the point where they have to come back to really see everything and ensure there is return business.

While that is taking place, we have multiple islands: Bimini, Grad Bahama, Exuma etc. You have so many islands that can be offering so much if you want to come and stay. When you think about cruises, we don’t have a cruise that originates in Nassau and goes around the islands, why not? So there are many things that we can offer, we just have to be creative and ensure that we get the participation of the private sector, because PPPs can ensure that the tourism industry can continue to grow. So our priority is getting more visitors to our shore and ensuring there is more to do to ensure a greater spend. If you wanted to see a show or hear Bahamian music, where would you go? So ensuring that our culture is a part of what we are offering is going to be paramount. We wanted to get back in the game and we did, now we want to get to the top of the game and we are going to do so by all the new offers that we are putting out there.

This month a video went viral that portrayed Nassau as dirty and dangerous, and highlighted that only a limited number of cruise ship passengers in fact leave the ship upon arrival in the capital. Although it was an amateur video, it does shine a spotlight on the international perception of Nassau and lost opportunities in tourism. How concerning is this to you?

I’m from a school of thought that the glass as always half full, so I see more positive than negative. This story was bad and the piece was terrible, but the message was right: fix your product. This is a visitor that came to the country because he heard about the brand but once here it was not what he was expecting to find. He just told me something and now I know and I just need to fix it, so that’s how I utilize it and that’s what we are doing, we are going to fix those things because you can ignore realities. We need to look at it realistically and deal with it. This was a message for us and it means we have to get busy and try to fix the problem.

In the face of increasing competition in the region, there’s no doubt that diversification must be the watchword. There is potential to broaden the country’s tourism product, for example, in the areas of cultural and heritage tourism, business, ecotourism and medical tourism. As Minister, where do you see the biggest opportunities to diversify this sector?

In all and each of them. Cultural heritage is big for us, for example, last year we introduced our carnival but this year we mixed it with our Junkanoo. You saw the numbers and we did not go for the marketing we could have, because we wanted to see how it worked first and then tweak it a bit. So now we now have decided that we are going to focus very heavily on it because we want more people to know about this celebration as there is no celebration like Junkanoo.

One of my colleagues when I was in broadcasting said that when you hear Junkanoo and you look at Bay Street, the sidewalks move, because the rhythm of the drums, cowbells, whistles and horns all come together. And when you consider the history because slaves used to march up Bay Street in defiance of their masters around Boxing Day. This is a history that needs to be told so let’s ensure that we have our heritage and culture featured more.

Regarding medical tourism, we have allowed for stem cell research and development in the Bahamas. Now in Grand Bahama a centre has opened so are we onto medical tourism. Every month around 30 doctors come to the country and participate and do work here now.

We have conferences and meetings. We have the meeting space, tax concessions, the American tax incentive and we keep creating incentives for people to come and take advantage of our facilities. Everyone goes after the larger companies but no one goes after the police associations etc. There is so much business but we have found ourselves stuck in a small paradigm, so let’s open up a little bit and create business all year around. You can’t be at the table and not realize you have competition. You need to stay ahead of the competition but let them worry about what you are doing, and not the other way around.

Given the wealth of opportunities that you have just described, do you think that the Bahamas is reaching its full potential in terms of FDI in tourism and where do you see the biggest opportunities for FDI?

There are global opportunities; I think the Bahamas at times doesn’t appreciate what it has here. China Construction made $138 billion in the Americas. Well you have some of the most famous athletes living here as well as the sixth British richest man who owns Albany, Joe Lewis. In Grand Bahama, you have top companies such as Hutchison Whampoa Limited. They have a container port but they are also leaders in telecommunications, why aren’t their corporate offices here? We can do more but we have to sit at the table and really think of what we can offer that will give you the edge. Because you have one great quality, your proximity to US, we can take great advantage. Let’s go after the leaders in Asia, the US, Europe and Latin America. The money is there, they look for things to do, they want to spend and want to invest, that’s how we ended up having the condominium legislation. The truth is it has to be aggressive, what we need to do is exactly what we did in tourism. I have offices in Florida, Atlanta, Washington, NY, Houston, Los Angeles, Canada, China and UK, and we are going to open offices in Latin America, where we have reps there now. Our Bahamas Investment Authority should have offices everywhere or representatives of their offices in my office and their job out to be everyday going after the business. Everyday they, like I do, should wake up in the morning, look at the market and look at where the money has been spent, where the investors are and go and get them.

One of the things I did when I became Minister was Bahamianize the offices. We climbed four points in our ratings, our numbers have been good, we have been able to keep growing, we have new airlifts coming on board, opened seven new gates this summer in Grand Bahama, so we have done very well.
I have come to realize that you can’t sit at home and expect something to happen. People don’t know if a country’s laws are compatible and attractive, like in Freeport, which is duty free, there is no corporate, excise or VAT tax. People don’t know that and you can’t assume they will know it. You have to go and tell them that there is a place call Freeport that offers interesting opportunities. Freeport in the Bahamas can be the Switzerland of the western world. It has the capacity, the laws, the continuity of government, the free port and very favourable laws as it relates to banking, so we have a tremendous amount of assets, which I believe we have walked as opposed to run.

On a more personal note, prior to your appointment as Minister of Tourism in 2012, you were an award-winning journalist. At the age of 16 you were the youngest reporter at the Broadcasting Corporation, were later assigned to the former Prime Minister Lynden Pindling and were even jailed for protecting the name of a source of information. What is the biggest lesson that you have learnt over the years that enables you today to succeed as Minister?

Your word means everything and the value of your word. Having worked in journalism, we want to ensure that when you are on air, that whatever you said people would accept that you are speaking authoritatively, that your subjectivity was put to bed and that you are seeking to ensure that the principles of journalism were always included in the stories. When it comes to working with Lynden Pindling to ensure that all times he wants you there, because if he has no confidence in you then why were you going to be there? I had the experience of covering him when he was dealing with the Commonwealth and Nelson Mandela issue and particularly when he went to the US and spoke at a meeting called by Jessie Jackson. I realized that more than anything else when Mandela was freed and he went to Jamaica and then came to Bahamas how if you believe in something, like Martin Luther King said, you have to be ready to die for it. That’s what happened to me when I went to prison because I received information, a man had killed himself in prison but before he sent me a letter. I didn’t know him, I read it in a talk show I was doing and they wanted to find out from me who brought me the letter and I wouldn’t tell them and had to protect my source. I believed in it and ended spending those days in prison, which were not the best. They put me in a cell, for example, with a man who has been charged with a triple murder experience and another with tuberculosis. You begin to realize, however, that all inmates have dignity and their culture. You learn lessons but it does cause you to become a different person. Your focus changes and you recognize the value of the opportunities you have and the life you live and that there is nothing more important than honesty.

I’ve learnt a lot and I love the opportunity that has been given to me now. I think this country can be one of the greatest countries in the world, we always say one of the greatest small countries but I just think one of the greatest companies. We have to work on our human capital, we have to ensure more of our people are getting education and opportunities for college education and we need to understand the important role of our people in playing in the international community, what is the role of the Bahamas? Let’s define it. When I worked with Pindling, he told me “The same day you set a date for the social and political independence, we must set a date for the economic independence.” I think that I am on the route now of economic independence and that it is my mission in to create an economic revolution. That’s why everything I talked about has to be connected to how you can build the economy and get more people involved.

As mentioned before, the readers of Harvard Business Review include many of the world’s most influential business and political leaders. What message would you like to send them about The Bahamas and your ministry?

I think the Bahamas will be a case study for developing countries on how you take an industry called tourism. When we entered this industry, many other countries in the Caribbean called it servitude. They didn’t believe that it had the sustainability to become an export and in fact they couldn’t define it. Also, this was not longer after colonization and they had the feeling they were going to be slaves to tourists. We saw it differently; as a time where your hospitality could be shown and you were sharing your experiences and people with others, because that’s how the tourism industry was developed. Many people came and kept coming back because you had a special thing because of who you are. The story of Christopher Columbus is interesting because when he came to the Bahamas, in his notes he said, the appear to want to give you everything they have, the problem is they don’t have much to give. This story tells you that from that very first visitor there was hospitality, and I think that is what we have been able to master and deliver. We are now looking at how we can create some linkages for a synergy for growth and development. So it tells you the story that you need one industry and from that one industry a country can grow. Always important is the development of your human capital because if you can master this, it becomes an export and an export that has value. We have taken tourism in spite of all that has happened, and now we are diversifying the tourism industry to create more opportunities, and in creating more opportunities, you create an economic revolution for more people to participate in.