The Impact of Cruise Ships on Small Bahamian Islands

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

Once again events at Harbour Island, the tiny but famous resort and retreat for the rich, have focused attention on an issue of crucial importance to its residents and to the whole Bahamas. It is the future direction and development of the country’s number one industry – tourism.

This national enterprise has provided an enviable standard of living for Bahamians for many years and can, if managed properly, continue to be the principal source of prosperity for generations to come.

At Harbour Island the debate has been about over-building, congestion and a new kind of home-owner. After a recent visit Prime Minister Perry Christie was reportedly concerned at what he saw.

The picturesque shoreline and main entry point facing Eleuthera is being radically changed by rather large buildings in one development. Furthermore, there are complaints that the wealthy residents who own second homes are giving way to a new breed of opportunists who build homes to be rented on the internet.

They compete with hotels and guest houses, some owned by Bahamians, but pay no room taxes. Many of their tenants come with their own supplies and spend comparatively little in the community. This is happening in other islands as well.

Last week Harbour Island was in the news again as a cruise ship landed 200 passengers onto the island’s fabled Pink Sands Beach. According to The Tribune, some residents, hotel owners and resort guests were outraged by the intrusion.

“As passengers came ashore, many headed for beach equipment owned by the two luxury hotels (Pink Sands and Coral Sands). As a result, guests paying up to $500 a night for exclusive accommodation began lodging protests with management, claiming they were never told the island was a cruise ship resort.”

The Tribune quotes a businessman as saying the cruise passengers brought their own food and beverages “so they are bringing nothing to the island but their trash.” They also went into the hotels to use toilet facilities.

Not all Brilanders were displeased, according to one resident. He said the passengers had a good time and some promised they would be flying in for vacations in the future.

Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe seems to have bought into the sales pitch that cruise passengers are on a familiarization trip and that many of them will come back as stopovers. Maybe some will, and we should encourage that, but Mr. Wilchcombe and Brilanders should not bank on it.

Many Bahamians are already worried about the new development model boasted by the PLP Government in which thousands of acres of Bahamian land, including publicly-owned property, is to be developed more for residential rather than touristic purposes.

Hundreds of acres of prime public land in New Providence has been turned over to the Baha Mar group and 10,000 acres is being taken over by the I Group in Mayguana. This is in addition to hundreds of acres of privately-owned land.

Most Bahamians appreciate the contribution made to our development over the years by wealthy second-home owners, but the prospect of tens of thousands of foreigners owning homes throughout the islands is frightening. This will have serious social, political and economic consequences for the future.

Now we are being told that more cruise ships will be targeting the Family Islands. If these ships are allowed to invade the Family Islands – especially the ones with expensive luxury resorts – they will deal a death blow to high-end tourism.

People willing to pay good money for the tranquility and exclusivity of Family Island resorts will run away if the ships are allowed to dump thousands of cruise passengers on them.

Successive governments and ministers of tourism have had an uneasy relationship with the cruise operators since Sir Stafford Sands did battle with them four or five decades ago.

A cruise is the ultimate all-inclusive vacation as the whole idea is to cater to the passengers on board, not encourage them to spend money at the destination.

The cruise operators even begrudge the destination a decent passenger landing tax and have forced tax competition between Caribbean countries. But Bermuda, a highly-valued destination, years ago turned the tables on them by strictly limiting the number of ships in port and charging a hefty passenger landing tax.

Cruise ship operators do not have the same loyalty and commitment to the destination as those developers who build hotels and resorts and who over many years have, along with the government, committed considerable resources to the promotion of the Bahamas internationally.

When there are problems to be addressed, resort developers like those who made Paradise Island and Cable Beach famous will be reliable partners because their money is in the ground. The floating resorts can pull up anchor and go somewhere else.

Furthermore, while tourism on the whole presents environmental challenges, the ships are a far greater threat than the resorts. Some of them have been suspected of dumping sewage, garbage and bilge into the ocean.

Right now a section of the south shore of Inagua is littered with tons of garbage and debris of all sorts, obviously washed ashore from ships. It is not a pretty sight.

The government has been talking a lot about giving downtown Nassau a make-over, and that is surely needed. But care should be taken not to turn the waterfront into a cheap attraction for cruise passengers, most of whom are not big spenders.

The government’s first order of business should be to improve the tourism product for those visitors who arrive mostly by air and check into hotels and guest houses.

We desperately need a more attractive city centre, but we need a lot of other things, and a first class international airport should be at the top of the list. Other things we have been talking much but doing little about for years are heritage, culture and ecology tourism, and, of course, good service.

If we do these things well and if we increase our inadequate inventory of hotel rooms, then more stopover tourists will bring us even greater prosperity. Chasing after the big cruise numbers will not do it.

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, former Director General of Tourism in the Bahamas and now Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization, last December warned us against measuring our success in terms of arrivals.

The Tribune quoted Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace: “People keep measuring tourism in the region in head count. Head count has very little to do with success in economic terms.”

We are boasting about having received five million visitors last year but 3.3 million were cruise passengers and only 1.6 million were stopovers.

When the Bahamas chalked up its first million in a year in 1968, and for years after, this ratio was far different. A great majority was stopover visitors. Perhaps the time has come to look at cruise arrivals and stopovers separately and to pay more attention to the latter.

Minister Wilchcombe in his contribution to the budget debate advised Bahamians to look at tourism expenditure:

“That is the number that we need to keep our eyes focused on when we focus on the interest of the Bahamian people. That is where the jobs come from. That is where the wages, tips and salaries come from. That is where Bahamian satisfaction with the tourism industry ultimately comes from. That is where the economic impact of tourism comes from.”

Perhaps his colleagues were listening and now understand where our priorities ought to be.

Comments

[Will Simmons]

Wow! I am from Harbour Island but currently study college in London (uk) i am very gald to see these issues discussed on this board.My family operate a small hotel one the island and I must emphasise how important repeat clientele are to our economy, and are what makes harbour island special. It is my feeling that tourism officials in nassau continuously fail to understand this, that one tourism product cannot just be copied and pasted to all islands. The devlopment stratagies of urban centers like nassau and freeport are inevitably different to what is needed in a small community like harbour island.the whole cruise fiasco clearly illustrates misunderstanding and misscomunication on various levels, between the ministry, the inefficient and questionably motivated local government, the bussinuess community,the vistors themselves and the natives as to what product is expected and what is beneficial to the local population. To clarify, cruises quite simply repel clientele the island has taken generations to establish and replace with one that spends less money and has less interest in the community. sorry that is an economic fact regardless of any opinion anyone might hold.Harbour island is a complex community with many issues, my recomendation would be improving our decaying and dysfunctional school. Adressing housing concerns for the native population before persuing cruise stopover tourist, effectivly undermining the integrity and economic base of the island. In short harbour island's development issues currently lie in the social sector not the economic sector, governtment attention to our island should be geared not to securing future investment or expanding tourism but remedying social ills and improving community facilities! perhaps this should be considered at the national level, with the third highest GDP per capita in the hemisphere mabye we should focus on redistributing wealth in our economy and adressing social issues not spending millions on ad campaigns to attract tourist we dont need that possibly even comprimise our existing economy and natural environment. just some thoughts!