The Bahamas needs to “go all out” to make Bahamian entertainment the foundation of its tourism product, an entertainer and consultant told the National Tourism Conference, in a bid to widen the distribution of tourism revenues and generate greater visitor spending.
Fred Ferguson said the Government needed to find a way to bind hotel developers to using Bahamian entertainment in the Heads of Agreement for their developments and project expansions.
He added that this nation needed to provide more nightlife, shows, dances and restaurants to give tourists more opportunity to interact with Bahamian culture and improve their vacation experience.
He was backed up by the Ministry of Tourism’s Brendan Foulkes, who told a different Conference session that he had been informed there were five full-production Bahamian shows ready to go that night if they got the call from the hotels.
“It drives me crazy that policymakers today are not making it contingent in the hotel licences to have Bahamian entertainment,” Mr Foulkes said.
He was backed up by the Ministry of Tourism’s Brendan Foulkes, who told a different Conference session that he had been informed there were five full-production Bahamian shows ready to go that night if they got the call from the hotels.
“It drives me crazy that policymakers today are not making it contingent in the hotel licences to have Bahamian entertainment,” Mr Foulkes said.
He added: “I don’t know what is Bahamian any more in the Bahamas. We as a people have plagiarised, we have taken…
Grips
“We need to come to grips with who we are. We have to decide what we are going to be as a destination. I don’t know what our point of difference is in this country.”
Managers
Mr Ferguson said Bahamian entertainers had allowed hotel managers to “pass the excuse” that they were too expensive to hire. He added that entertainers had also been their own worst enemy at times, and had “taken advantage of a good situation” by not properly training and preparing themselves to exploit the opportunities offered by the tourism sector.
Mr Ferguson said he was talking to the College of the Bahamas about providing training courses and after-school programmes for budding musicians. Conference participants said the Bahamas had to be careful to share its culture, rather than create cultural activity for visitors.
Angela Cleare, senior director of prodiuct development at the Ministry of ļ¾ Tourism, pointed to the festivals that took place annually in the Family Islands, such as the San Salvador Discovery Festival, Cat Island’s Rake N’ Scrape Festival, and the Long Island Corn Fest.
She added that the Ministry had played an active role in cleaning up and enhancing the Queen’s Staircase in Nassau, which attracted some 300,000 visitors annually.
Renovation
Preacher’s Cay in Eleuthera was undergoing a “full renovation”, with beach huts and bathrooms also being installed for visitor comfort and there were plans for combined tours of this location with the island’s pineapple fields.
Also on the drawing board were eco-tourism and nature tours in Andros, tours of New Providence settlements, and ferry tours in the Berry Islands, the latter in conjunction with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor
