D’Aguilar: Visitor spend close to 80% of 2019 numbers

While tourism numbers remain below their record-breaking 2019 levels, the economic impact for The Bahamas is greater than the 2021 numbers indicate, as stopover visitors have been staying longer than they usually would, Minister of Tourism and Aviation Dionisio D’Aguilar said yesterday while delivering his keynote address at the Eleuthera Business Outlook.

He added that the country’s airlift could be back to the pre-pandemic capacity of 4,000 seats by the end of the year.

D’Aguilar explained that though 2021 numbers represent 70 percent of 2019 numbers, with more than 400,000 stop over visitors coming to The Bahamas in the first six months of this year, their spend could be as high as 80 percent of where it was in 2019.

“While at initial glance, that number may seem low, what is interesting to note is that the number of arrivals have been increasing every month,” D’Aguilar said.

“So, if you look at June 2021 alone, just over 135,000 stopover visitors would have come to The Bahamas, representing almost 70 percent of the total in June 2019.

“My point is that every month, more and more visitors are returning to The Bahamas and the difference between 2021 visitor arrivals and 2019 visitor arrivals is declining with each passing month.”

“The more exclusive and therefore the more expensive components of our tourism product are rebounding quicker, meaning that even though the heads may only be 70 percent of what they once were, the spending by visitors is probably closer to 80 percent of what it once was.”

He said the Family Islands’ more expensive boutique properties have been doing well since the start of the pandemic.

According to D’Aguilar, Eleuthera’s tourism product has been performing the best of the Family Islands. He added that Abaco also showed impressive visitor numbers, extolling that it is “quite remarkable given the damage Hurricane Dorian put on that island” and leading him to conclude that “those second home owners are very very loyal to Abaco”.

D’Aguilar said while September and October will be slow months as they traditionally are, it is expected that Thanksgiving and Christmas will show a strong rebound this year compared to 2019. He added that airlift continues to grow as investor confidence in the country grows.

“For example, Virgin Atlantic just announced that it will offer twice-weekly flights to The Bahamas from London Heathrow starting November 20th and new airlines, such as Frontier, are ramping up service to our islands as well,” D’Aguilar said.

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/daguilar-visitor-spend-close-to-80-of-2019-numbers/