The Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, along with industry partners, attended the Routes Americas 2020 conference recently held in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Attending from the Ministry of Tourism were Tyrone Sawyer, Senior Director – airlift development and Faye Cash, general manager – airlift development.

The Bahamas team engaged in several twenty-five minute meetings per day with airline partners over a three-day period, to review the performance of existing Bahamas routes, to re-align tactics as necessary, and to explore new strategies to build the performance of their flights to The Islands of The Bahamas.

Feedback from key airline partners at Routes Americas 2020 suggests that airlift performance in early 2020 to Nassau/Paradise Island is showing strong signs of a “turn-around”, due mainly to a strong promotional effort by the Ministry of Tourism and its Industry partners in key markets.

Key airline partners, such as American Airlines and Delta Airlines, demonstrated strong confidence in Bahamas tourism by “holding the line” and maintaining year-over-year increases in nonstop air seats from their respective hubs of Miami, Charlotte and Atlanta.

Another key objective of the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism team at Routes Americas 2020 was to identify new route development opportunities.

The Bahamas team has also identified the Latin American market for renewed focus.

In addition to Copa Airlines which operates nonstop flights from Panama to Nassau, a high percentage of Latin American air arrivals to The Bahamas connect through Miami on American Airlines. A smaller percentage of air arrivals connect through Fort Lauderdale on United Airlines’ Code Share partner, Silver Airways, and through Delta Airlines via its Atlanta hub.