PANAMA CITY, Panama -- The Bahamas saw a 40 percent hike in visitor arrivals from Latin America for June and July, with Copa Airlines' four-weekly flights behind 98 percent of the increase, according to statistics out of the Ministry of Tourism (MoT).
Copa's Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Marco Ocando, described the new route as a contender for the airline's most successful to date in a meeting with Bahamian media Tuesday. Sitting in the boardroom of the airline's Panama head office, he said Copa has begun to look at the feasibility of graduating the new destination to daily service.
"We are very satisfied and happy with the performance of the route and we are making the studies necessary to try and work for daily frequency," Ocando said. "We're pushing for it, but the route is doing the job itself."
Ocando is predicting that at the pace the Nassau route is growing, it could set a new record at the airline for the shortest time to move to daily service. That could mean significant growth in stopover visitors from growing Latin American markets.
Still, Ocando was careful to caution against any premature expectations for daily or any expanded service, saying the company must feel an expansion would be sustainable over the long term.
"We are in the trial period - we're having a honeymoon. But the important thing in marketing is the repurchase and the retrial - ensuring that people have a great time and they themselves want to [return] and enjoy it more."
Overcoming language barriers would be a key to supporting service expansion, according to the Copa executive. The number of affluent people in Latin America able travel to The Bahamas may be strong and growing, but according to Ocando, those people "don't necessarily speak English".
Ocando's language concerns follow results from MoT exit-surveys of Copa passengers. On the upside, over two-thirds of respondents - about 68 percent - said they would "definitely" recommend the destination to friends and relatives, with an additional 10 percent saying they would 'probably' recommend it.
Anyone looking to improve that number, however, would consider the 44 percent of respondents who said better Spanish-speaking skills in The Bahamas would have improved their vacation experience. Language problems were identified in 38 percent of the respondents' comments. Experiencing Panama as a non-Spanish speaking visitor brought home the reality of how incapacitated and helpless visitors could feel in a country where communication was predominated by a 'foreign' language. And that is with the advantage of having a tour guide to translate, a bilingual airline representative along, and speaking English - which many Panamanians in hotels, restaurants, retail stores and other tourist attractions spoke or were attempting to learn.
Ocando's advice to The Bahamas was to formulate a plan to narrow the language divide, and to commit to that plan. Copa itself faced and faces language issues, he said. To address the English/Spanish language gap some years ago, the company implemented a policy that required employees to have some level of proficiency in English, with additional training available for those who needed it once they were hired.
Many who hoped to be employed with the airline started to learn or hone their English skills as a result, he said. Today, the company faces the Portuguese/Spanish/English communication gap as it grows its Brazilian business. It's taking a variety of measures to better service those travelers' communication needs including, for example, printing in-flight magazines in all three languages, or running special Portuguese editions. It's also analyzing the feasibility of offering Portuguese language training to crew-members.
Language was likely to be a shared challenge with other Caribbean countries that may compete with The Bahamas for market share. For example, Copa plans to introduce service into Jamaica by the end of December, according to Ocando.
It currently has service into St. Martin, which also is not a Spanish-speaking destination. He said he's curious to see which destination adapts best to the language challenge. "The one that better adapts will ultimately win the question," he said.
Of the Copa travelers responding to the MoT survey, 42 percent said stores closed too early, 24 percent said that items were too expensive and 20 percent disliked the limited variety of shops. Twelve percent said they were bored or had nothing to do and another 10 percent said that either sales people were pushy or people were unfriendly.
In addition to language challenges, it highlights that many other opportunities exist to improve the visitor experience. As those issues are addressed, the benefits would likely accrue to Anglophone visitors, too.
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