International

BAHAMAS RECLAIMS PRE-COVID TOURISM LEVELS

Tourism in The Bahamas is booming right now, according to new data from the country’s Ministry of Tourism.

With 700 islands and 16 full-fledged island destinations this archipelago is a tough destination to beat.

Air and sea arrivals to The Bahamas are up to 515.6 percent this year compared to the same period in 2021, according to tourism officials.

The tourism surge comes as the country’s economy has made “great strides” towards reaching pre-pandemic levels.

And more tourism growth is forecast for 2023.

“We believe we’re tracking slightly behind 2019, but so far so good in the post-covid climate,” Deputy Prime Minister and Tourism Minister Chester Cooper tells Caribbean Journal. “Our proximity [to the US] hasn’t changed.”

Overall, the country is seeing a tourism boom, just two years after the onset of the pandemic.

Indeed, 2019 was a banner year for The Bahamas’ tourism industry, when the country attracted 7.2 million visitors, with around 5 million cruise passengers and two million stopover visitors.

And looking ahead to 2023, The Bahamas is expecting to exceed those levels, he said.

“We want to see a significant increase in the number of stopover visitors,” he said.

That will be driven by a continued increase in hotel room stock, from the expansion and reopening at Sandals Royal Bahamian to the reopening of the Club Med in San Salvador, a new Ritz-Carlton Reserve in South Eleuthera and the return of Grand Bahama’s Grand Lucayan to the destination’s inventory.

But the biggest area of growth could come from Florida, The Bahamas’ biggest — and closest – source market.

Right now, The Bahamas is welcoming around 500,000 stopover visitors each year from Florida.

Cooper says he would like to see that number double.

Nassau, Paradise Island

“We have a renewed focus on Florida,” he said. “We’re attracting around half a million stopovers from Florida each year — but 22 million people live [there]. It’s a 30 minute flight, and we’re very focused on making it even easier to get to The Bahamas.”

More broadly, though, Cooper says the growth will be buoyed by the Bahamian people.

“We want to foster a vibrant future focused on the Bahamian people, culture and heritage, meaningful investments and an eye towards sustainability. There’s no doubt that our culture, people and environment are the essence of our tourism offering, and we must take steps,” he says.

That includes a focus on the Bahamian people, culture and heritage, which Cooper says are the “heartbeat” of the country, with a major boost from the return of cultural events and festivals this year.

International

10 % ON EXPORTS TO US

US President Donald Trump says it’s Liberation Day in America as he announced his sweeping new tariffs. The new measures took effect at midnight. Since taking office in January, Trump has imposed several of the measures.

US President Donald Trump has announced a 10 percent universal tariff on all imports into the country. This includes Barbadian exports to the American market. According to Mr. Trump, the tariff is in retaliation for the 10 per cent tariff now charged by Jamaica on U.S. imports.

The tariff means American consumers are likely to see an increase in the price of Jamaican goods sold on the U.S. market.

St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Belize, Suriname, St. Kitts and Antigua are among the Caribbean countries that will also see a 10% tariff applied to their exports.

Nearly 60 countries across the world have been hit with tariffs ranging from 10 per cent to as high as 49 per cent. China, countries in the European Union, Taiwan and Vietnam are among the hardest hit. It’s one of the most sweeping impositions of tariffs in U.S. history.

Trump says the tariffs are aimed at protecting American markets from unfair global trade practices. He’s projecting a resurgence in American manufacturing as a result of the sweeping tariffs.

International

China’s Xi Jinping tells top global CEOs to use their influence to defend trade

Gathering of senior business leaders in Beijing comes amid rising tensions with US

Xi Jinping has urged global business leaders to work together to protect supply chains at a meeting with a group of executives including Rajesh Subramaniam of FedEx, Ola Källenius of Mercedes-Benz and Georges Elhedery of HSBC.

Amid a deepening trade war with the US, the Chinese leader told the group of more than 40 business leaders, which also included Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca, Miguel Ángel López Borrego of Thyssenkrupp and Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco, that foreign business leaders should resist behaviours that “turn back the clock” on history.

“We hope everyone can take a broad and long-term view . . . and not blindly follow actions that disrupt the security and stability of global industrial chains and supply chains, but instead contribute more positive energy and certainty to global development,” Xi told the gathering in Beijing on Friday.

The event at the Great Hall of the People marked the second consecutive year that Xi held a carefully staged meeting with foreign chief executives in the Chinese capital. Last year’s event was held exclusively with US business leaders.

The meeting came at the conclusion of a busy week for Chinese policymakers, who are trying to strengthen relations with international business amid rising tensions with US President Donald Trump’s administration.

China’s premier annual CEO conference, the China Development Forum, was held in Beijing this week, followed by the Boao Forum for Asia in the tropical resort island of Hainan. Beijing is seeking to promote itself as a bastion of stability in global trade in contrast to the US, where Trump has launched successive waves of tariffs on products from aluminium to cars. The president has vowed widespread, reciprocal duties on US trading partners on April 2, threatening further disruption to international trade.

“A few countries are building ‘small yards with high walls’, setting up tariff barriers, and politicising, instrumentalising, weaponising, and over-securitising economic and trade issues,” said Xi, who was accompanied by his foreign, commerce and finance ministers.

He said these actions were forcing companies “to take sides and make choices that go against economic principles”. “This runs counter to the overarching trend of open markets,” he said. He added that foreign enterprises, especially multinational corporations, had “considerable international influence”.

“We hope everyone will . . . resist regressive moves that turn back the clock,” Xi said. “Together, we must safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains. “Decoupling and severing ties harms others without benefiting oneself; it leads nowhere.”

International

US to Negotiate with Regional Governments on Hiring of Cuban Doctors

US special envoy to the Caribbean and Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, says the United States intends to negotiate a mechanism with Caribbean governments regarding the hiring of Cuban doctors.

The US has threatened visa restrictions for nations who benefit from Cuban medical missions. They deem the programme as a form of forced labour and trafficking on the part of the Cuban government.

Several countries in the Caribbean rely heavily on Cuban medical missions to supplement local staff.

The special envoy says the US wants a united voice against human trafficking, in favour of international labour laws. He says they look forward to reaching a deal that allows Caribbean governments to directly hire Cuban doctors.