NASSAU, Bahamas, November 16, 2000.... The President of the Bahamas Hotel Association has called for the creation of a formal manifesto for tourism in The Bahamas as a means of creating basic standards of performance and criteria for excellence that are relatively untainted by political, partisan group or individual agendas.
Speaking recently to the Kiwanis Club of Cable Beach, Mr. Strachan said that Bahamas tourism "cannot afford the luxury of a single moment of insouciance, because our customers are beginning to believe that we are hiding the welcome mat every time they appear."
Citing what he called "the highest authority— the word of our customers through the vehicle of the Ministry of Tourism's exit surveys", Mr. Strachan sounded the alarm that visitors to The Bahamas were beginning to express dissatisfaction about certain aspects of their Bahamian experience.
Recent surveys of visitor opinion have revealed an increasing level of dissatisfaction with specific aspects of the Bahamian vacation experience. Visitors cite: Littering, harassment/ hustling/ fighting, offensive language, drinking in public in the main tourist areas and price gouging as particular irritants.
As far as our visitors are concerned, Mr. Strachan said, "We turn our backs and send them away when we allow our roadways, beaches and public facilities to become befouled by litter. They feel rejected each time the air is befouled by the emissions of poorly maintained vehicles and the curses both casual and angry of man, woman, boy and girl in any street that you might happen to pass through."
Mr. Strachan said visitors have been telling us through recently conducted surveys that "They are frightened by the harassment of vendors, beggars and the young men who drink and get drunk with impunity on our main tourist strip. They feel violated by the price gouging of merchants and service providers, whose prices seem to have tourist radar. They appear to go up every time one of them approaches and shows an interest in buying."
The BHA President said he does not believe The Bahamas are adequately positioned for success in the 2 1 st century.
"We don't seem to see the breaches in the walls of our market share, heretofore relatively unchallenged in the Caribbean since the 1960s. We persist in promoting what is now fast being regarded as "bait and switch". Our tourism and hospitality tours abroad feature a band of well-trained pitchmen who promise a warm and gracious Bahamian welcome for those who come to our shores. More and more of those who are lured, however, are encountering surliness and insouciance from the time they hit, from the arrivals hall straight through to the final boarding call, with scarcely any relief in between."
Mr. Strachan said that he is hoping that what the nation is now experiencing in the financial services sector will demonstrate how fragile small economies are in the marketplace.
"I hope this evidence of our vulnerability will send a thunderous wake-up call through the length and breadth of our archipelago that will shatter the thick coat of whitewash and complacency obscuring the realities of our present situation," he said.
"But it is not too late. There is still time to take action. To ensure that tourism in The Bahamas stays competitive and profitable in the 2 1 st century, we must devise a new mechanism to drive the structuring, operation and regulation of the industry. It will take no less than the unification of the industry. I wish to go on record as saying that, in the fifty years of the ascendancy of tourism in this country, we have yet to achieve unity of goals, or unity of values and standards.
"I propose that each and every person who lives and works in The Bahamas thinks of him or herself as a cast member in a costly production playing day after day, night after night, before a succession of very demanding audiences," said Mr. Strachan.
"Our urgent mandate for the new millennium is for us to get together as a people to create a formal manifesto for tourism. We must create basic standards of performance and criteria for excellence that are relatively untainted by political, partisan group or individual agendas," said Mr. Strachan.
The BHA President suggested that accomplishing this objective will require the creation of forums for serious deliberations by stakeholders of every rank and not only by consultants or others not having a vested interest in the success of Bahamas tourism.
"There are questions we need urgently to ask and answer," he continued". "For example:
- What role does tourism play in the life of our country in terms other than the standard cliche of supplying more than 50% of GDP?
- What role does it play in the life of each island, community, and neighbourhood?
- Do we want tourism to continue to play the same roles?
- How do the educational education system, healthcare, policing, social services, banking, retail, environmental services, fisheries, agriculture, churches, traffic regulation, labour and partisan politics, and so on impact tourism and how are they, in turn, affected by the industry?
"Once we have thoroughly examined these and other issues, we can began to decide on a system of values for tourism, subscribed to by everyone from the child in primary school, to the supermarket cashier, to the fisherman on the high seas, and from the hotel operator, to the owner of the motor scooter franchise to the union leader. Our values will influence the priorities and standards that we set," concluded Mr. Strachan.
