Family island chambers of commerce must work more closely with a budding geotourism platform to promote local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to a Bahamas Family of Islands Geotourism Program representative.

Speaking at the second annual National Conclave of Chambers of Commerce in The Bahamas last week, Jean Simmons of the Bahamas Geotourism Stewardship Council called on members of various family island chambers of commerce to take a more active role in nominating and promoting attractions, artisans and resorts that reflect the authentic culture of individual islands.

"The goal is to make tourism benefit more people in more places by inspiring people to travel to the Out Islands," she said, stating that the program needs help in shifting the country's tourism market away from the traditional Nassau, Paradise Island and Port Lucaya, Freeport destinations.

The Bahamas Family of Islands Geotourism Program, a program co-branded by National Geographic and the Ministry of Tourism, hopes to provide a model for sustainable tourism in the country through mapping attractions based on nominations from locals and industry stakeholders.

The program's website states that it seeks to "capture the warm and welcoming persona of the islands through an informative National Geographic Society co-branded online interactive map that will represent the sites and stories of the region to the world in the words of its residents."

While Simmons believed that the country had made significant progress in promoting geotourism in recent years, she said that certain Family Islands had fallen short of the program's goals ahead of its launch. While islands such as Bimini had done well in nominating and mapping its attractions on the site (48 identified, 42 active), others had failed to fully utilize the program, including Eleuthera (104 identified, 11 active).

"We need help from you for those major islands. Optimally, we would like at least 25 items so that when we have the official launch, we'll have a good representation of the Bahamas family of islands," Simmons said.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) jointly funded the program along with Compete Caribbean, a private sector development program that provides technical assistance and grants to regional SME activities.

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