Steady and unrelenting streams of travelers eager to put Lady Luck to the test.
Big city vibes laced with an unspoiled charm that was both welcoming and modern.
A constant drumbeat of entertainment with spellbinding impact.
The tourism heyday of Freeport, Grand Bahama, in the 1960s was as much about innovation and adventure as it was about providence and opportunity.
At the heart of it was hope in what could be achieved when imagination and motivation are leveraged, and the challenges that could derail it.
Still, optimism remains that with a clearly defined strategy and the right enabling environment, the magic can be restored and sustained.
The 1955 Hawksbill Creek Agreement, which gave birth to developer Wallace Groves' ideas for Freeport, is central to the city's roots and its economic engine.
The vision grew to include a metropolis tourism center with the hallmarks of duty-free trade.
The initial agreement, with a 99-year lease, formalized the Grand Bahama Port Authority's (GBPA) responsibility for developing and managing a defined "Port Area" as well as substantial tax concessions for financial, commercial and industrial enterprises.
It entrenched responsibilities for infrastructure and municipal services and licensing businesses.
As circumstances changed, however, amendments were made in 1960 and 1965.
The government of The Bahamas eventually acquired a minority stake in the GBPA.
Over time, virgin brush and pine lands gave way to a deep water port, airport, modern infrastructure, and even a hospital.
A new industrial footprint began to take shape with the addition of a major cement plant, pharmaceutical factory, and oil bunkering facility.
The GBPA granted nearly 2,000 business licenses before 1968, historian Michael Craton wrote in "History of The Bahamas".
The year 1968 marked a huge peak in development on Grand Bahama, albeit in the midst of simmering social malaise and tensions.
Luxury homes and condominiums, hotels, casinos, an international shopping center and three 18-hole golf courses were characteristic of a buoyant economy, so much so that Freeport was coined the "Magic City".
Residential enclaves to the east and west of the island held the populations that yielded the many service workers needed to keep various sectors thriving.
With additional investments and strategic direction from British businessman, Charles Hayward, and later his son, Sir Jack Hayward, as well as Edward St. George, the island flourished.
At the root of the city's development was strategy.
The "Magic City" of Freeport and Grand Bahama was the direct result of an emphasis placed by the GBPA and the government on developing tourism for Grand Bahama.
"Big name players came into it [including] brand names like the Holiday Inn, the Princess, of course, and the product expanded not only through hotels, but hotels of different types and entertainment, as well as golf courses," said Sir Baltron Bethel, the first Bahamian director general of tourism and the longest serving in that crucial position.
The Jack Tar Resort opened in 1959 at the site which became Old Bahama Bay.
With a casino as the key feature, the Lucayan Beach Hotel opened in 1963.
Soon thereafter came the 500-room Holiday Inn and 800-room Kings Inn, which later became the Princess Hotel with a casino operation.
These properties expanded room capacity and sparked vibrancy.
The island's airport accommodated heavily marketed air travel excursions, including those on large jets, thus providing the funnel for hotel guests. They were just as keen to indulge in the island's entertainment and shopping.
"These hotels were game changers in that they also attracted lots of airlift. For instance, in the case of the Princess Hotel, and in the chain hotels, we had an operator of some 30 flights a week into Freeport, Grand Bahama," said Sir Baltron, who also served as CEO and deputy chair of the Hotel Corporation of The Bahamas.
"It was at that time when the visionaries at the Grand Bahama Port Authority, like the Haywards and the St. Georges, were very active and put a great focus on tourism."
The concessions enshrined in the Hawksbill Creek Agreement and dual focus on touristic and industrial development sparked huge benefits for Grand Bahama.
At the time, the island's leisure tourism offered what other competing destinations did not - casino gambling.
Many of the visitors who came to the island occupied seats at the gambling tables and machines in the El Casino at the Princess and the Monte Carlo Casino at the Lucayan Beach Hotel.
Under agreements with the government and the Hotel Corporation of The Bahamas, these properties were required to maintain adequate levels of entertainment, so nightclubs and shows with captivating Bahamian and international acts flourished, feeding spin-off tourism dollars throughout the island.
The "magic" was fully unleashed and excitement enveloped the island. However, internal and external factors brought the boon to a dramatic end.
What was originally a brand advantage for the island became its Achilles' heel.
Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, former director general of tourism and former CEO of the Hotel Corporation of The Bahamas, explained the decline.
"The problem was that Freeport had a reputation, at least from a visitor point of view, that it was a place for low-price casino gambling when you had the Princess Hotel, the largest hotel on the island, offering itself as a place to come and gamble inexpensively," Vanderpool-Wallace said.
"We found out through research when we asked visitors 'Does Freeport have very nice beaches?' and that the answer was 'no' because at the time, the Our Lucaya was shut down and this property was the big game in town ... Then, what began to happen was casinos became available all over the United States of America, so the reason to come to Grand Bahama evaporated because the primary reason was to go to the casino at a fairly low price."
There were other factors that eroded the magic. Not only did casino operations begin to expand elsewhere, but competing destinations like the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Jamaica had attractive hotel properties and were more affordable.
To make matters worse, domestic tourism to Grand Bahama slid as well.
"There were hundreds of Bahamians who left Nassau and went to Grand Bahama every weekend," Vanderpool-Wallace said.
"It had nightclub after nightclub after nightclub. It was wonderful entertainment, then that began to evaporate and so the two primary reasons that people flocked to Grand Bahama, as a domestic trip and also as an international trip, began to dry up."
The magic fizzled.
Over the decades, despite the ebb and flow of success and challenge, both Grand Bahama and its people have remained resilient.
Climate change, most horrifically manifested as severe weather phenomena, has become a perennial foe.
Successive hurricanes, Frances and Jeanne (2004), as well as Wilma (2005) and Matthew (2016) ravaged hotel inventory, infrastructure and hindered travel and economic growth.
Hotel and casino operations have opened and closed including the Royal Oasis and Grand Lucayan.
However, Hurricane Dorian (2019) dealt an unprecedented blow and is one of the biggest setbacks to overcome.
Long before Dorian, the lingering challenges were acknowledged.
When he addressed the Grand Bahama Business Outlook conference in 2001, then-Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe expressed both optimism and deep concern about Grand Bahama's prospects.
He said the tourism product was in dire need of help and despite more than $400 million injected in infrastructure in the construction of the Grand Lucaya Resort and the refurbishment of the Royal Oasis Resort, the island was underperforming and underproducing.
"There is something missing," Wilchcombe said.
"There's no sizzle, and our promotional and marketing efforts are so disjointed that we have to resort to subsidizing our service to the destination. We have not created a demand for Grand Bahama.
"We said we have redefined the destination, moving away from the Freeport-centered image to one that encompasses an island-wide vacation experience, but the message doesn't seem to have any impact."
The Ministry of Tourism celebrated 50 years of The Bahamas' modern tourism in 2014, dating back to the 1964 Promotion of Tourism Act.
Grand Bahama's development is a pivotal part of the country's tourism legacy.
These days, watchful eyes are on the much-anticipated sale of the Grand Lucayan resort which has been mired in controversy.
The government has announced plans for a $200 million redevelopment of Grand Bahama International Airport and a $300 million development for West End.
Carnival Cruise Line has also broken ground for a $200 million cruise port to simultaneously accommodate two of Carnival's Excel-class ships.
Vanderpool-Wallace was clear about the hope he has in the island's tourism rebound.
"More and more people are beginning to recognize that it needs to have a significant attraction in order to get people to come there and I know of at least two that are being discussed right now in order to bring it back to where it was," he said.
"The attractions are substantially different to what it is at Baha Mar and Atlantis, and I think that part of it is very, very important, but I have a lot of faith that Grand Bahama is going to return and it's going to be a substantial tourism destination."
Meanwhile, the governance model of the once "Magic City" has become particularly topical as of late with the prime minister recently expressing in Parliament the government's dissatisfaction with the GBPA, which the Davis administration contends is not fully living up to its obligations under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement.
But just what this "decisive action" is the prime minister has called for, in this regard, remains to be seen.
Note: If you'd like to receive a digital copy of The Nassau Guardian's entire Independence Supplement, please send a request to 50@nasguard.com.
The post Hope lingers for a revitalization of the 'Magic City' appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.The post Hope lingers for a revitalization of the 'Magic City' appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
