Nassau, The Bahamas – The Bahamas has reached another milestone in the tourism industry. On Friday, September 23, stakeholders in the Civil Aviation industry launched The Bahamas State Safety Plan – the first of its kind in the region.
Minister of Tourism and Aviation, Senator Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace congratulated the stakeholders on this achievement. “This is an outstanding milestone as The Bahamas becomes the first Caribbean state to launch the State Safety programme in North America,” said Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace. “I really wanted to say congratulations to all in this room – it makes me feel so very good.”
Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace said that with the bar raised so high for the civil aviation industry, it is ‘imperative’ that the highest standards are practiced.
“We place civil aviation and the airline business to the highest standard on earth. You see so many businesses in so many other arenas, what we say is that we get it about 80 percent right,” said Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace. “Now imagine if only 80 percent of planes landed properly. What would happen?”
He said that The Bahamas has been successful in the aviation industry because the industry has always insisted on a standard level that is unequal in the world.
“That’s why it is very important that we constantly update ourselves so that we can get better and better at what we’re doing in order to make sure that we would be very successful,” he explained.
Expressing that The Bahamas ‘had no choice’ but to excel in this industry, Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace said the potential of the country is ‘unbelievable!”
“The statistic that I remind people of constantly is that if Nassau/Paradise Island was a country in the Caribbean, it would be number four in terms of total air arrivals, number two in terms of total visitors and number one for cruise passengers,” he said.
He added, however, that Nassau/Paradise Island is only two percent of The Bahamas! “So two percent of The Bahamas is competing with the rest of the region. And we know the reason why we’ve never gotten ourselves beyond this one little rock in the middle of this wonderful archipelago is because we never got to the point of developing the internal air transportation systems to the degree that is necessary for us to take full advantage of it and so this is a developmental imperative!”
With The Bahamas boasting 64 airports, Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace said that as the country continues to be developed, would the full potential of the tourism industry be felt.
“That’s who we are and the only way we begin to develop the country and take full advantage of having more islands than the Caribbean combined, more clear waters than the Caribbean combined, more beaches than the Caribbean combined and the only way that we can develop that is to begin to do what we are doing today.”
Bringing welcome remarks was Captain Patrick Rolle, Director of Civil Aviation. Mr. Alfredo Arrisueno – International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Consultant, conducted a presentation on the State Safety Plan. In addition presentations were made by Mrs. Loretta Martin, Director of the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC) (Mexico and Mrs. Monique Hepburn from the Office of The Director of Civil Aviation.
By Betty Vedrine
Bahamas Information Services
