Cuba and the United States have just signed an air service agreement, bringing the question of competition between The Bahamas and Cuba back to the forefront. Director General of Tourism Joy Jibrilu told Guardian Business yesterday that "the product in Cuba and the product in The Bahamas is completely different", and that Cuba will not really be competition for The Bahamas.

Jibrilu said, "The Bahamas is viewed as a high-end destination."

Earlier this month, Bloomberg Travel reported that The Bahamas is viewed as the number one destination for wealthy travellers. The director pointed out that Cuba was not even considered in that list. However, she stated that Nassau has always been a hub to Cuba, and "people forget that relationship exists".

According to Jibrilu, "We see this as a great opportunity to grow numbers, and numbers that would have not ordinarily come to our destination."

She suggests that Cuba and The Bahamas will be working together, and stated, "We are just going to make Nassau a hub, especially for people from far places".

For instance, she said there is a flight from Beijing to Montreal and Montreal to Bejing.

"But, when you travel that far, you are not going to come to one destination... What we are working toward is that they spend a week in Havana, Cuba and then come to Nassau, New Providence for four days."

"We have hotels that are delighted to be in this program because it gives them an opportunity that did not exist," she added.
When asked about the advantage of room capacity that Cuba has over The Bahamas, Jibrilu responded by asking, "How much more can Nassau and Paradise Island take? Given the size of Cuba, will The Bahamas ever be able to have 60,000 rooms?"

As an indicator of the health of the tourism industry, the director stated, "We are coming over from a very strong 2015".
She added that in the last quarter of 2015, most of the hotel properties experienced their strongest quarter since 2007.

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