Hotel moguls in the Out Islands have a lot to celebrate as they have seen a boost in international tourist arrivals, according to Bahama Out Island Promotional Board Executive Director Shavonne Darville.

Recently, it was revealed that tourist arrivals were up by 14.7 per cent at the end of March.

During a board of directors meeting held at the British Colonial Hilton on June 4, Ms. Darville said this was credited to an aggressive marketing approach.

“March and April tend to be extremely good months in tourism and so everyone is buoyant at this time because occupancies have been good. Our room nights sold in terms of hotel properties up until April we were up by 10 per cent so it’s something to celebrate,” she said.

“We have seen a mixed strategy in terms of the Out Islands. This is in terms of both raising strategies in occupancy rates and raising average daily rates (ADR) and in some cases some properties are sacrificing occupancy for rate. With that said, we’ve seen an increase to date that we can report to members that as of the end of April, we had a 14 per cent increase of levees recorded and that is despite that of to date we still have 20 members not reporting for April as yet.”

Ms. Darville said the average occupancy rates have increased from 32 per cent to 43 per cent.

This is an excerpt from Tourism Today as it appeared on June 23, 2014. For updates or to read the current version of this post in its entirety, please click here.

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