NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Exuma has lost 11,000 airline seats from January to July this year due to the bankruptcy of Silver Airways, a blow to the island’s tourism sector. Despite this, hotels have remained resilient, with room nights sold from January through August surpassing pre-pandemic levels by nearly 32 percent.
Kerry Fountain, Executive Director of the Out Island Promotion Board, told the Exuma Business Outlook that from January through August this year, compared to the same period in 2024, approximately 10,000 room nights were sold. Although room revenue was down about 10.37 percent, pre-pandemic numbers show that room nights sold this year surpass 2019 figures by 31.59 percent. Room revenue for the same period is up about 37 percent compared to 2019.
“Despite the challenges that we’ve had on Exuma with the passing of Silver Airways, our hotels still manage to achieve this. Now, not bad is not good, but it could have been worse,” said Fountain. He noted that the benchmark is not 2019—it’s 2024, despite the challenges of that year.
On June 11, Silver Airways ceased all flight operations after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2024. At the time, the airline still provided flights from Fort Lauderdale to Georgetown.
“This has led to a huge decrease in available seats to Exuma. As a matter of fact, seat capacity decreased during the January through July 2025 period by 20 percent, or approximately 11,000 seats, when compared to the same period in 2024. Based on Silver Airways’ winter plans last year at this time, we stand to lose another 13,000 seats this December through June,” said Fountain.
Bahamasair Managing Director Tracy Cooper, whose airline operates an Exuma–Fort Lauderdale flight in the summer, said service will resume on November 24.
“Those flights will be happening on Monday and Fridays. And we intend to have a couple more airplanes that come on stream, hopefully around the second quarter or so. And the intent is that we will then increase those rotations. For 2026, we will run straight through for the whole year flights between Exuma and Fort Lauderdale,” said Cooper.
Shona Perry, General Manager of the Grand Isle Resort, speaking on the resort’s performance, noted:
“We’re now seeing a pickup for November and December, whereas in the past, guests were booking six months in advance. We knew exactly what was happening at Grand Isle Resort. But now the world has changed and we’re no longer getting that really long booking window. So, if you had asked me, you know, four weeks ago, how I felt about early December, I would have told you I was very concerned. Now, as we get closer and closer, we are seeing things pick up.”
Regarding challenges, she added that access to and advertising of the island have been issues.
“We’ve definitely seen some negatives to Sandals closing. We are ready for Beaches to come. It’s our next-door neighbor. We’re friends. We work together and that’s great news for the island because they do have a much larger marketing budget as the Beaches brand than most of us do. And we feel like that has negatively affected the footfall and the traffic coming to the island and the people that know about the island and are learning, and they know that it’s luxury and we need to keep our rates at a certain level. It’s not necessarily that we’re struggling, but we have seen a decline this year in the ADR than we would have in years gone by. So then we have to make adjustments.”
