Director General of Tourism, Latia Duncombe was in New York City attending the 2nd annual Bahamas Business and Investment Forum on Thursday were she spoke with ZNS News about the event and the progress of the tourism sector.
She said, “so this is the second one that we’ve had and what I like more about this one is the focus. We’ve been very intentional about the layout, the agenda and day two focuses on the orange economy, the blue economy. Tourism is the number one industry and from that perspective most of the investments is in the tourism space. And what this forum did it gave investors a closer look at the destination highlighting the various industries, the various aspects, the work that we’ve done from a regulation perspective. Tomorrow what’s most exciting for me is the opportunities from the creative space. The culture, the history, the heritage how does that translate when they think about investing in the tourism sector. How do we preserve and protect our environment. So we’re diving into the blue economy, looking at the opportunities in the creative space and it shows them that the industry is sustained. So yes, we’re seeing the growth from a tourism perspective but there is always opportunities for visitors to have an enriched experience with a destination that’s being environmentally responsible.”
Currently The Bahamas has one tourism office in Canada. According to Duncombe there is huge opportunity in the Canadian market. She said, “we’ve seen most of the airline carriers or some of the Canadian carriers have made a decision to shift their routes. So in The Bahamas were seeing a 50% increased airline or airlift capacity coming in to the destination. We’re also seeing an opportunity because they’re now going into Europe and the UK and its giving us access to connectivity that we’ve not necessarily had before.”
The Director General said she and her team visited Canada in the past two weeks and are planning missions to Canada and Florida. Duncombe says The Bahamas remains the destination of choice.
The Bahamas Business and Investment Forum end on May 30th.
