The Central Bank of The Bahamas reported yesterday that tourist arrivals to Grand Bahama fell by 20 percent in the second quarter of 2005.
Despite a decline in tourist arrivals to Grand Bahama, officials say overall tourism output stabilized during the last quart.
But the new economic report said despite ongoing weaknesses in Grand Bahama, linked to hurricane-related disruptions in supply, indications are that tourism output stabilized relative to the previous quarter, but remained below the pre-hurricane levels of 2004.
“Healthy gains in occupancy and average room rates in New Providence and Paradise Island sustained expenditure growth and helped offset an 8.3 percent reduction in overall visitor arrivals to 1,290,189,” the report said.
It noted that weakness in air and sea arrivals was mainly concentrated in Grand Bahama, although visitors to New Providence and the Family Islands also declined by 8.1 percent and 2 percent respectively.
The Central Bank also reported that the Bahamian economy continued to expand in the second quarter of 2005, benefiting from steady tourism and foreign investment inflows and robust housing activity.
The report said, however, that although revenue performance was positive over the first 11 months of fiscal year 2004/2005, fiscal operations resulted in a widened deficit due to growth in both recurrent and capital expenditure.
Preliminary estimates indicated that the deficit on the government’s operations rose to $137.2 million for the first 11 months of the last fiscal year from $85.9 million during the same period in fiscal year 2003/2004.
The report said, “Improved revenue collection measures and favourable economic conditions supported total revenue growth of 4.9 percent to $910.4 million.”
On the other hand, total expenditure increased by 9.9 percent to $1,047.6 million, inclusive of a 6.8 percent boost in current outlays to $927.3 million, the report also said.
During the period in question, the direct charge on the government increased by 3.4 percent to $2.1 billion and the National Debt was also 3.4 percent higher at $2.66 billion, according to the Central Bank.
From The Bahama Journal
