NASSAU, BAHAMAS- The Bahamas must translate its proximity to its major tourist source market into affordability, according to a tourism executive, who suggested that reducing airline taxes could attract more stopover visitors, with those taxes ultimately being recouped through increased spending on the islands.
Kerry Fountain, the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board’s Executive Director speaking on the sidelines of the 2025 Routes Americas Conference at the Atlantis Resort, noted: “Every time we start with a tourism business plan or marketing plan for the Bahamas, we do a SWOT analysis, and we always talk about proximity—Bimini is 52 miles away from South Florida. What we fail to do is convert proximity into affordability, and that’s due to taxes. One of the things we need to look at is how we can reduce the cost of getting to The Bahamas by lowering taxes. We know that when you reduce the cost of getting to a destination, the gates will open a bit wider, and you collect on what the consumer or visitor spends at the destination.”
Fountain added: “If it’s more affordable to get to the destination, you’re going to attract more people. In our case, because we’re closer, we have to be more affordable. We can make up the loss in airline taxes with island spending.” The Bahamas welcomed 11.22 total visitors in 2024, with foreign air arrivals exceeding 1.72 million, matching 2023 numbers.
Fountain noted that the BOIPB, for its part, was using the Routes Americas conference to bring new business opportunities in the out islands to light. “Identifying opportunities for each island and each airport and determining who the best partners are is crucial. Airlines want to know what’s happening in terms of new hotel builds, second home rentals, and developments on the island. They want to see the business opportunity, and that’s what I’m trying to highlight—bringing the business opportunities to light.”
Fountain also acknowledged the need to facilitate greater accessibility to the family islands. “We also need to look at flight times to connect with our islands. We know that the major bank of flights coming into LPIA, a lot of them, hit the sweet spot around 10 am -12:30 pm.”
He added: “It’s not just about fixing affordability, but accessibility. That means getting time to Acklins, Andros, or Exuma, or wherever it is you want to go on the same day. We have to take advantage of the bank of flights coming in and time our flights going out to the islands with them as well as the times flights are returning from the out islands.”
Routes Americas, the region’s leading air service development conference, is taking place this week at the Atlantis Resort. Some 93 leading airlines are represented at the conference, along with 421 organizations and 1,023 registered attendees from 63 countries.
