There needs to be much stronger marketing to encourage more tourists to make overnight visits to the Bahama according to hotel union chief Pat Bain.
Mr. Bain, president of the bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union, said that if this does not take place, the country can expect to lose its market share in stay-over visitors.
In a statement released yesterday, Mr. Bain said that while the country has been rated the number one vacation spot for stay-over and cruise ship arrivals among English speaking Caribbean countries, stopover arrivals have not increased in the past four years.
He said hotels are feeling the financial implications of this fact.
Mr. Bain said that while cruise shiop passenger numbers can be impressively large, cruise visitors are not known to be big spenders.
According to the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), the Bahamas hosted 826,500 stopover visitors and 1,728,895 cruise ship passengers from January to June this year. However, the numbers indicate a 2.5 per cent drop in stopover visitors and a 5.7 per cent drop in cruise ship passengers compared to the same period last year.
Source: The Tribune
