Left to right: Anthony Stuart, Director of Europe, Joy Jibrilu, Director General and Tommy Thompson, Deputy Director General. (Photo: Bahamas High Commission)

London, England – Tourism officials from The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism have been in London for ten days to drive business to The Bahamas and meet with staff from the Europe offices. The team included Director General Joy Jibrilu, Deputy Director General Tommy Thompson, Director of Airlift Development Tyrone Sawyer and new Director of Europe Anthony Stuart.

Joy Jibrilu hit the ground running in her new role as The Ministry of Tourism’s new Director General. Mrs. Jibrilu along with her senior management team conducted business meetings with tour operators throughout the UK and Germany over a period of ten days. The Director General stated that she and her team mean business and they are serious about driving up numbers from the European market.

“We know that our brand is strong and everywhere we go name recognition for The Bahamas is high. Now our job is to translate that into increasing the number of visitors from Europe to The Bahamas,” said Mrs Jibrilu.

The senior management team from Tourism had discussions with major tour operators including Thomas Cooke Germany, Thomas Cooke UK, De Touristic in Germany, Virgin Tours as well as other major tour operators in the UK.

“We’ve had very good and promising discussions with airlines in the UK and in Germany. The understanding is that we need to increase airlift into The Bahamas, to fill all the rooms we have coming on stream particularly with BahaMar opening December this year. We discussed direct air routes and also connecting existing airlines in North America from Europe routing them to The Bahamas. Some of those hubs that are able to do that are New York, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami. There are already existing partnerships of some airlines like Virgin and JetBlue, British Airways and American Airlines and Lufthansa. We want to tap into this and get airlift increased from Europe to The Bahamas,” she stated.

Left to right: Anthony Stuart, Director of Europe, Joy Jibrilu, Director General, (top centre) Tyrone Sawyer, Director of Airlift Development and Tommy Thompson, Deputy Director General along with Tourism office staff from France, Germany, Italy, London and Russia. (Photo: Bahamas High Commission)

Anthony Stuart is the new Director of Europe and will be responsible for all the offices located in France, Germany, Italy, London and Russia.

“We know that there is great potential in Europe, we want to see those numbers grow again and by having a dedicated Director of Europe who will be based in London, he will be able to meet face to face with operators. We’re showing that we are serious, we mean business and we want to see our numbers grow again from the UK and Europe,” stated Mrs Jibrilu.

The senior management team also conducted interviews on traveling to The Bahamas with niche’ tourism media houses for publication in magazines.