Director General of Tourism Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace recently pointed to the urgent need for upgrades to begin at the Nassau International Airport as his Ministry works on a plan to attract more group business to The Bahamas.
Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace told the Bahama Journal that such improvements will become even more vital when a convention tax exemption between The Bahamas and the United States kicks in in January, 2006.
Government officials have said that the much talked about facelift for NIA should begin within months.
The government has faced criticism from the country’s largest investor, Kerzner International, with hotel mogul Sol Kerzner going as far as labeling NIA “the worst airport in the world.”
Mr. Kerzner’s comments came during ground breaking of Phase III of Kerzner International’s Atlantis Paradise Island Resort last fall.
The improvements to the airport are not only important to Mr. Kerzner, but they are also being pushed by tourism officials like Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace, who explained how the tax exemption would benefit The Bahamas.
“If there is a meeting of people flying from one part of the United States to another to hold their meeting, they can consider flying to The Bahamas and have the cost of that meeting written off against their business expenses which they couldn’t do before this tax exchange agreement, so it is an enormous market that we were not involved in that we can now go after,” Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace explained.
“All of this is what makes it imperative that we upgrade the quality of the airports because you have large [numbers] of people coming in with group movements which require a much, much better facility at Nassau International Airport and Grand Bahama International Airport in particular,” he said.
Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace also said the Ministry of Tourism is now placing greater emphasis on attracting group travel.
“Calling on group business is a completely different skill set and so we’re going to make sure that our people are properly trained to go after group business because obviously we’re talking about a much more sophisticated customer in many respects,” he said.
“People would have to understand the group inventory in The Bahamas much better, what is important to sell and how it is to be sold. We’re already doing that because that’s a very important part of our business development.”
Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace added that tourism officials will soon be estimating what incremental group business the country is likely to receive in the first year and onward.
“So with this new tax information exchange agreement, those meetings that could not be held in the United States and written off against taxes, can now be held outside the United States, specifically in The Bahamas as if it were being held within the United States,” he said. “So it opens up The Bahamas to go after a lot more meetings business, we couldn’t otherwise touch.
He explained that group business is valuable because groups are often booked a long time in advance compared to individual business.
“The bigger properties can now have the security of a solid foundation of business a long time in advance as compared to the smaller properties. And you don’t find people discounting as much because they would have a much better and a much bigger base of business,” Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace said.
John Delaney, an attorney at Higgs and Johnson, Lyford Cay, agreed that the convention tax exchange would be of great importance to The Bahamas.
“It would promote tourism in The Bahamas, certainly from the point of view of conventions being held in The Bahamas and thereby be a tremendous benefit to our tourism industry and therefore the Bahamian community,” Mr. Delaney said.
Hadassah Hall, The Bahama Journal
