NASSAU, Bahamas — The tourism “floodgates” will open if The Bahamas can tell its core visitor markets that its population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, a top government official asserted yesterday, The Tribune reported on Friday, April 30, in an article written by Business Editor Neil Hartnell.
Joy Jibrilu, the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general, told a Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference panel discussion that achieving so-called herd immunity and mass inoculation would “be the best marketing tool that could be handed to us” in reviving an industry estimated to generate around half of all Bahamian jobs and economic activity.
Adding her voice to growing warnings that the Bahamian economy will never be able to fully recover from the pandemic’s devastation unless the majority of its population become vaccinated, Mrs Jibrilu said her ministry’s primary goal had always been health and safety – especially that of front-line tourism workers interacting with foreign visitors.
“For The Bahamas to be able to say that we, as a nation, our population is fully vaccinated and our country is a safe place to visit, that would open the floodgates as people would want to travel, but health and safety is a big concern,” she added.
“That would be the best marketing tool that could be handed to us at this time, but that goes hand in hand with having to protect citizens.” Mrs Jibrilu also defended The Bahamas’ requirement that, prior to tomorrow, all visitors had to produce a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within five days of travelling to this nation.
This measure will be relaxed tomorrow for all visitors who can prove they are fully vaccinated, meaning they have received two COVID-19 jabs, but the policy has come under fire from repeated letters to this newspaper – especially from Canadians – complaining that the PCR test is too costly, difficult to access and makes the logistics of arranging travel just too cumbersome and uncertain.
The Ministry of Tourism’s director-general said people had questioned whether The Bahamas was “mad” for insisting on a negative PCR test, amid suggestions that it would deter what little tourism business there was during COVID-19, but argued that the opposite occurred because persons wanted to visit a destination that was safe and taking the virus seriously. See complete article in The Tribune at http://www.tribune242.com/news/2021/apr/30/vaccination-critical-open-bahamas-tourism-floodgat/
