Advantage Travel's Doreen Lynch with Stuart Bowe of Atlantis, Karen Salviato of CWT, Franca Iuela of Ensemble Travel and Nick Polifemi, also with CWT
The impressive delegation from the Bahamas included Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham (front, centre)
Superclubs' Suzanne Fleming
Thomas Cook's Wayne Noseworthy with Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, Minister of Tourism and Aviation and
Zhivargo Laing, Minister of State for Finance
Boy, the numbers sure were flying recently in the ballroom of the swank King Edward Hotel in Toronto. That’s because the Bahamians were in town, sharing the news of the major investments going on in their country.
The message? The Bahamas are more bullish than a trio of toreadors and are digging deep to prove it.
Some of the numbers being bandied about: $70 million for a new ferry terminal and commercial port. The famed Straw Market has at last reopened – after an investment of $12 million. $409 million is being lavished on the airport alone.
The hotels haven’t been holding back, either, with gargantuan investments happening at, for example, Atlantis. $11 million has gone into a new teen club alone (!). Featuring 14,000 square feet and an internet lounge with multi-touch computers and surface tables with photo editing and publishing interfaces, it guarantees that your clients’ teens will never look at their parents’ Commodore 64s in the same light again.
After all this talk of such dizzying facts and figures, it was a real pleasure to just chat with some of the many Bahamians present about what they love about their home, and what they like to do (presumably when not multi-touching computers and using publishing interfaces).
Gina Rodgers Sealy of Bahamas Information Services loves to go to Arawak Cay near Nassau, which features some 50 food stalls serving up the freshest of seafood to locals and tourists alike. Honourary Bahamian Stewart Steeves is the Canadian President and CEO of the airport, who actually misses winter, bless him. In Nassau he loves to take his 5 year old son and 2 year old twin girls to Aradastra Gardens. “It’s little kid sized – with lots of birds and winding paths. My kids would go there every weekend if they could.”
Raymond Francis of the Out Islands Promotion Board loves Cat Island. His perfect Saturday would be “finding a little place down by the beach, listening to rake’n’scrape and eating a little conch salad.” Rake’n’scrape btw - a uniquely Bahamian style of music featuring drum, concertina and a carpenter’s saw.
Pretty low key, but it sure sounds good to me - and the perfect antidote to too much winter!
