U.S. Tourism Promotions to Kick Off Next Year

U.S. Tourism Promotions to Kick Off Next Year
By Inderia Saunders

The clock is ticking for The Bahamas to really get its tourism industry back on track before major competition from the heavyweight U.S. – which is entering the ring to go after similar markets – takes over.

The North American country's plan includes increasing domestic tourism as well as the number of international visitors from around the world.

Daniel Halpern, a board member for the Corporation for Travel Promotion, which has been instrumental in developing the U.S. Travel Promotion Act announced by U.S. President Barack Obama – said the program's campaigns will not kick-off until next year.

Even in the absence of aggressive marketing from the U.S., Bahamian arrivals to the U.S. for the first seven months of 2010 were up by 13 percent. That contributed to a $77 billion spend in that economy up to July.

According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Commerce earlier last year, total visits from the Caribbean were up by five percent for the year and The Bahamas accounted for almost one-quarter of the region's total visits to the neighboring country.

Obama's Travel Promotion Act seeks to promote the United States as a tourism and travel destination all over the world. The legislation is a part of an Obama goal to double exports in the next five years, with that government waiving visa requirements for participating countries to encourage U.S. travel. Bahamians are not currently required to obtain a visa before traveling to the country, so that particular benefit of the act may not factor into increasing visitors from the country.

The move by the U.S. comes as the longstanding complaint still stands that The Bahamas is just too expensive of a destination for locals to vacation at home. That's something the Ministry of Tourism has been trying to change in recent years. Among the promotions targeting those domestic travel dollars is a companion fly-free program that is now ending, but was centered on showing locals the luxuries related to vacationing at home.

One of the promotion's goals was to help drive arrivals into the Family Islands, Tourism officials have often said. While no actual data has been provided, they say there have been some signs of success in this area.