Pictured (from left) are Zhai Xingfu, counselor and the deputy chief of mission of the Chinese Embassy in the Bahamas; Hyacinth Pratt, permanent secretary in Ministry of Tourism & Aviation; Zhuan Ling, guest of the Bahamas; Jiao Wei, guest of Ms. Ling, Wendy Roberts, translator, and Robert "Sandy" Sands, Baha Mar's sr. vice president - Government and External Affairs. (Photo: Derek Smith/BIS)

Chinese citizens – and potential visitors to the Bahamas – will have the opportunity to see several Bahamian islands through the eyes of one of their countrymen due to the efforts of Baha Mar Resort, the government of China and the Ministry of Tourism & Aviation.  

The Bahamas took full advantage of Expo Shanghai in 2010 to expose the world’s most populated country to the opportunities for travel to Nassau/Paradise Island, Grand Bahama Island and the other islands.  By maintaining a six-month exhibition space in Shanghai, several hundred thousand people were able to learn about The Islands Of The Bahamas.  Two lucky Chinese citizens also received a week-long stay in the Bahamas after winning a China-wide promotion that required contest participants to research the Bahamas’ islands.  

The first winner, freelance writer Tang Xiaomin, enjoyed his weeklong stay at Atlantis in 2010. Recently, another winner, Zhuan Ling, traveled to The Bahamas for a week-long stay at Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort.  

Ms. Ling, director of marketing for a private company in China, maintains a popular blog. She plans to update her 150,000 followers on everything she discovers in The Bahamas. With the assistance of an interpreter, she explained that she already has a list of things she can tell Chinese residents about the Bahamas.  

“It is a beautiful place for scenery, the hospitality of the Bahamian people and their welcoming smiles, and you have duty-free commodities and your history,” Ms. Ling said.  

Hyacinth Pratt, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Tourism & Aviation, welcomed Ms. Ling to the Bahamas.  She pointed out that Ms. Ling and the guest she brought to the Bahamas would experience Nassau/Paradise Island, Harbour Island and Exuma. This would allow people in China to learn more about Bahamian islands on Ms. Ling’s blog, Ms. Pratt said.  

“That means she is going to be telling them about her experiences and that is going to cause them to, in my opinion, see the Bahamas, learn about the Bahamas and want to come to the Bahamas,” she said. “If she is blogging, it is going to be international exposure as well as among the Chinese community. We just recently relaxed some entry requirements for Chinese to the Bahamas. So as long as they are able to get their visa, there should be no problem, and we should have a number of persons from China, hopefully, from her blog.”  

Ms. Pratt pointed out that The Bahamas’ participation in Expo Shanghai 2010 came through the assistance of Baha Mar, Atlantis and the People’s Republic of China, who all made significant financial contributions to the effort.  

Robert “Sandy” Sands, Baha Mar’s sr. vice president of Government and External Affairs, pointed out that the Expo Shanghai competition caused contestants to do a great deal of research on the Bahamas.  The winners were selected based on a travel itinerary that contestants submitted – experiences that they wished to have in the country.  

“What is so important is that they have begun to design their own forecasted experiences and expectations of a stay in the Bahamas,” he said. “And what better than someone to design such an experience in the Bahamas and then go back to their homeland, China, and promote the success and the satisfaction of their stay. To me, that speaks volumes of the first-hand recommendation that all touristic nations require from its potential and future visitors.”  

At the completion of the Baha Mar project, the resort will enjoy a special relationship with China and the rest of Asia, Mr. Sands said.  

“It is very obvious,” he said. “Baha Mar will be the spark plug, we believe, to help to encourage the development of tourism from that region, certainly slowly, in small numbers but then growing in larger numbers.  The fact that Baha Mar has pivotal partners from China, we certainly wish to bring that final peg to the table of tourists from that area staying in our resort, sharing in the experiences of an institution that has been financed and built by Chinese contractors.  Certainly, we believe that that diversification in tourism would help to solidify our base of being a successful tourism operation for the future.”  

Zhai Xingfu, counselor and the deputy chief of mission of the Chinese Embassy in the Bahamas, believed that Baha Mar would attract more visitors from China.  He pointed out that few people in China knew about the Bahamas until recently.  Since several high-level diplomatic visits to the Bahamas, the Chinese government has had the opportunity to broadcast information about the Bahamas several times in prime time on Chinese television, he said.  

“So now, more and more people are beginning to know about the Bahamas,” he said. “They know the Bahamas is one of the leading tourism destinations in the world and I think and I am sure more Chinese people are willing to come over for a visit.”  

Mr. Xingfu believed that projects on which China and the Bahamas collaborate will continue to bring attention and interest in travel to the Bahamas.