Freeport, Bahamas - Local hotels are being urged to rethink their pricing strategies to facilitate the shift in visitor demographics needed to boost the island's struggling tourism industry.

Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce President K. Peter Turnquest suggested this at a recent local forum, where he spoke about the closure of three hotels on the island last year.

He said although he was not aware of all the details involved in the businesses' decision, he believes that alternative measures could have been implemented in an attempt to ensure that the hoteliers did not have to close their doors.

"I feel that at least one of these hotels should have been able to survive and even pick up significant occupancy from the vast middle income market, being that it had the opportunity to provide a low to medium room rate option for tourists who would not mind not being directly on the beach front in favour of a budget room," he said.

"I don't know what the management deal was with this particular group and the property owners, but it seems to me that reasonable people ought to have been able to work out an arrangement that would have seen some bodies in beds rather than a boarded up property in our main tourist district."

Overall, Turnquest said he thinks that the island is in fact suffering from a deficit of rooms, rather than a surplus "particularly the type rooms that will attract the budget conscious tourist who is suffering the effects of the global recession or who may be insecure about his job situation are directly being impacted, Roberts said tourists are now being affected by crime and it is also having an adverse

tion.

"These potential tourists may not be willing to take the $5,000 vacation, but will take a $1,000 - $2,000 vacation."

Industry partners must be made to appreciate, he added, that the island's tourism industry is not what it was in its heyday when tourists had a considerable amount of disposable income and there was little competition.

"We are today faced with a much more educated and informed customer with easier access to deals and promotions that were not available or widely known in the past," he said.

As Minister of Tourism Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace has noted in the past, visitors have the option of flying to the Dominican Republic or Cuba or Jamaica for a cheaper rate than to Grand Bahama, which is significantly closer.

"We are faced with competition that is 50 to 75 percent cheaper all around, that's rooms and food, than we are. We have a consumer that now knows that 50 – 60 percent of the souvenirs they buy are from Asia and the experiences they are exposed to are manufactured," he said.

"But yet we want to continue to package our product and sell it as if there has been no change in the paradigm. Well, that's one way to go, build it and they will come! But I don't have much faith in that as it relates to the future of our number one industry."

Turnquest said he believes the island needs a totally new vision of what tourism means for a developing country with a mature product.

Mistakes must be evaluated and a new plan created to avoid them and develop new areas of the industry.

"In my vision, I see hotels returning to a totally indigenous offering with a sprinkling of European and American influences rather than the reverse... What is it that we are selling that sets us apart from every other destination, including the U.S. and the rest of the Carib-bean?" he said.

The president also criticized the country's decision to allow so many foreign hoteliers to come in and control the main industry.

"I believe much of the unrest we see in the hotel industry today, aside from just plain bad management practices and greedy unionists and predatory lawyers, is due to the fact that we have for years been allowing foreign hoteliers to come into The Bahamas, to tell us how to be Bahamian, to tell us what our guests, whom we have had a relationship with from the 50s need, want and expect," he said.

"What they have been giving us, however, is their version of what being Bahamian is and what they think, based upon what their Eurocentric experience tells them, that our guests want. As a result, our industry professionals put on the appearance of happiness and genuine service for guests as they have been trained to do, but have no real buy-in. The service they provide is not genuine, native or natural."

His vision for the industry, he shared, is that Bahamians emphasize their personalities and penchant for hospitality, warmth and open friendliness.

"In doing so, it is my belief that we will see a more genuine tourism product and a return to the charm we used to be known for in days gone by."

In going forward, Turnquest said he believes The Bahamas must also rethink its belief that bigger is better when it comes to hotel developments, pointing out that there could be tremendous value in having a grouping of smaller boutique properties that allow for a more personal relationship with guests.

"This type development will also allow Bahamians more of an opportunity to become stakeholders in the industry," he said.

"Thus, I believe the government, through its agencies and connections globally, ought to be identifying prime locations for resort development, identifying potential financing worldwide for our people who may qualify, some with a little help from that government, identifying those leaders in the industry who may be capable and interested in taking ownership and connecting them and their resulting properties to markets and marketers to drive their success."

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