business@tribunemedia.net
THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 2021
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Bahamas travel interest ramps up By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net NASSAU Paradise Island Promotion Board (NPIPB) has reported a significant jump in interest in holidaying in The Bahamas. NPIPB president Fred Lounsberry, told Tribune Business that things are getting “very busy” at the NPIPB due to increase in traveller interest in The Bahamas, but aggregate hits to the website are still only one third of 2019’s numbers. He said: “We look at a couple of different measures, but from Google Analytics travel trends, Bahamas search for March was up 19 percent versus the prior month. Nassau search demand, this is people looking for The Bahamas and Nassau, Nassau is up 30 percent over the prior month; air travel search, month on month 57 percent and hotel was up 27 percent.” The NPIPB’s search trends are in line with similar trends presented by the travel company, Expedia
A VIEW of Nassau/Paradise Island Harbour. which show searches about The Bahamas had increased by 170 percent in February. Mr Lounsberry also said these trends are “going in the right way”. “Visits to our website are up 41 percent and conversions are up 49.6 percent,” he said. Conversions represent people that log on to the NPIPB’s website and then go on to a member hotel’s website, something that is a key indicator on the seriousness of potential visitors. “This is big, the base is growing so if we do this every month for a few months we’ll be feeling a
Unemployment extension hailed by labour specialist By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THE extension of unemployment benefits by the government has been hailed as “fantastic” by a senior businessman who believes it will help stave off redundancies for many furloughed workers. Peter Goudie, Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation’s (BCCEC) labour specialist, told Tribune Business yesterday that it is “fantastic” that the government decided to extend the unemployment benefit assistance until May of this year.
PETER GOUDIE Mr Goudie said: “This is fantastic news because there are a lot of people out there who just don’t have the income and are not working. It keeps away this whole business of redundancy at the moment. If they start
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Local shop initiative looking for ‘next big thing’ By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net THE ShopLocal initiative will be extended through this month as the initiative’s director is looking for “the next big thing” to spur Bahamians into shopping at home. Alannah van Onselen, ShopLocal initiative’s co-director, told Tribune Business yesterday that the social media aspect of ShopLocal is still “ongoing”, and the leadership team is discussing ways they can sustain the marketing push
well into the summer period. Ms van Onselen said: “We had a meeting yesterday morning to talk about it. The social media aspect is still going and obviously, it’s still an important message that needs to get out there. We were brainstorming yesterday on what the next steps would be and how to bring ShopLocal back to life again and start to come up with different ideas to get people’s attention again.” Tara Morley, The Bahamas Federation of Retailers
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lot better. But it’s definitely very positive,” said Mr Lounsberry. “We’re getting ready to launch and get pretty aggressive in the next couple of weeks and cooperating with some of the major OTA (online travel agencies) like Expedia and then we’re going to be doing connected television and go very direct in about seven markets, we’re still working on that plan and that will start probably towards the end of the month. “But the fact is we’re ramping up our marketing pretty dramatically from what we’ve done prior.
FRED LOUNSBERRY When you look at the trends and you see that the wind is not in our face anymore it’s turning now to our backs. “In 2019 we were averaging 600,000 hits to the website a month and right now we are averaging 200,000 and growing every month. 2019 is our benchmark because 2020 was obviously a washout, but at least things are starting to move. “It started at 50,000 a week and then it has been creeping up to 200,000 a month and it is rolling every week, but we have a long way to go and all of our measurements are showing now that we’re closing this gap on 2019. Our goals and objectives are to get us back to 2019. I think we are certainly going the right way. “We’re increasing our digital spending literally every week to get us back to where we were, it is a function of budget and our revenue and as business grows we will have to invest every dime of it.”
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Bank chief: Global projections mean nothing locally By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net A leading banker believes global growth projections mean nothing for The Bahamas and we should concentrate instead on the tour core tourism market of America. Gowon Bowe, Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told Tribune Business that growth projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are not what local businesses should focus on. He was responding to reports that the IMF has upgraded their global growth forecast to six percent from 5.5 percent. “I think it’s important that we appreciate that whilst we are an open economy – and so therefore, global growth is a positive contributor for us – we are also very concentrated in very specific markets where growth will have the greatest impact for us,” he said. “Understanding our primary industry being
GOWON BOWE tourism, our principal markets are North America, and so as it relates to global growth that includes both the developed countries, as well as developing and emerging economies. Sometimes you will find growth in India, China and Japan doesn’t have a necessary immediate contribution to the Bahamas, simply because our ability to take advantage of their markets is limited by the fact that we don’t have significant trade.” Earlier this week the IMF upgraded their global growth forecast for 2021
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