Tourism officials continue to await final approvals from the China National Tourism Authority, which would give Bahamian officials and Chinese tour operators the freedom to actively promote The Bahamas tourism product in China.
Director General of Tourism Vernice Walkine said on Thursday that in the meantime, the ministry is taking the necessary steps to ensure that The Bahamas would be in the position when the time comes to fully service the “savvy visitors”.
Ms. Walkine gave the update during a China symposium at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel in downtown Nassau during which time officials updated industry stakeholders on the efforts to tap into the Chinese market.
The director general said it would be foolish for The Bahamas not to target the Chinese market.
“It was important for us to make sure that the local industry here in The Bahamas receives an appreciation for why we are targeting the Chinese market,” Ms. Walkine said.
“It is predicted that the [Chinese market would be] the largest growing market for outbound travel by 2010-and also it is important for us to continue to diversify the base of our tourism business.”
Tourism officials have said repeatedly that they don’t want to be disproportionately reliant on the United States for business.
It was a point Ms. Walkine reiterated on Thursday.
“We would like to be able to expand our base and the Chinese market presents an awesome opportunity for us to do that. They are travelling more and more. They have the disposal income. They are looking for more long haul destinations and The Bahamas is obviously a long haul destination.”
Ms. Walkine pointed out that a sustainable flow of Chinese visitors to The Bahamas is not going to happen overnight.
“In order for us to be poised to receive them in a couple of years – that is three to five years – I imagine there are some things we need to do by then in our country and the reason we held the symposium is to allow for that to start happening,” she said.
During the symposium, tourism officials also addressed concerns regarding the language barrier that could be associated with attracting greater numbers of Chinese visitors.
Tourism Director of Airlift Tyrone Sawyer told The Bahama Journal that airlift is going to be key to the effort to bring Chinese tourists to The Bahamas.
He said his department had already started to talk to different airlines trying to convince them to make it easier for Chinese visitors to get here.
“We are going to very quickly mobilize our efforts to get better connections from China into The Bahamas,” Mr. Sawyer said. “It takes some planning. It takes some thinking and we are in that process right now [of securing] better connections in order to secure more tourist business from China.”
Kim Seymour, tourism director for Europe and Asia, told The Bahamas Journal that marketing has started on a small scale.
“We see great things ahead for the Bahamas Chinese relationship,” she said. “We have made two trips to China where we have met with [Chinese tourism stakeholders] and the interest is phenomenal.”
She added, “It is a joint educational process so we have to educate the Chinese travel trade, but we also have to educate the Chinese consumer, so those things will go hand in hand.
By: Royanne Forbes-Darville, The Bahama Journal
