NASSAU, Bahamas –A Cabinet minister yesterday said The Bahamas “must be creative” in filling COVID-19’s “tourism gap” as Barbados moves to allow visitors to stay for one year, The Tribune reported on July 13, in an article written by Business Editor Neil Hartnell.
Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, while revealing that The Bahamas has expanded the pre-travel COVID-19 PCR test window back to 10 days, described the move by its Caribbean rival as “very, very interesting”.
Barbadian premier Mia Mottley last week unveiled the Barbados Welcome Stamp proposal, which would allow tourists to stay in that country for 12 months working remotely from hotels, condos, rental villas and other accommodations. Work spaces would also be made available.
The move represents Barbados’ response to the loss of its traditional leisure tourism market due to the global pandemic, and Mr D’Aguilar agreed that similar innovative, out-of-the-box thinking was required if The Bahamas is to compensate for an anticipated one to two-year slowdown in its largest industry.
He added that another possibility lay in The Bahamas offering itself as a nearby offshore base for foreign students attending American universities who are being prevented from remaining in that nation by the US Border Protection regime, but nothing has been determined by the Minnis administration yet.
“The What’s App channels have been abuzz about this innovative Barbados approach to attract visitors back to the island on a one-year annual stay. Very, very interesting,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business.
“We know in countries that are as tourism-dependent as ours that we need to recognise business is going to be down, and the numbers are going to be lower for a certain period of time, maybe one or two years.
“It behooves us to be creative in developing other sources of visitors to our country; in essence, to fill the gap created by this COVID-19 pandemic.”
The Barbados initiative, besides boosting the island’s tourism product, also holds out the promise of potentially attracting permanent new businesses and industries if those taking advantage of the Welcome Stamp in initiative – which is due to start on August 1 – find the business climate to their liking. See full Tribune article at http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/jul/13/barbados-takes-lead-in-filling-tourism-gap/
