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WestJet launches direct service to Grand Bahama
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| Published on Thursday, November 5, 2009 | Email To Friend Print Version
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Tourism and Aviation Minister, Senator Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace accepts
the ceremonial WestJet miniature from Gregg Saretsky, Vice President,
WestJet Vacations. WestJet starts direct service to Grand Bahama in
November. (BIS Photo/Vandyke Hepburn)
By Simon Lewis
FREEPORT, Bahamas (BIS) -- Bahamas' tourism sector got a needed shot in the arm Monday when WestJet Airlines announced direct service there from Toronto, Canada beginning in November.
At a press conference, Minister of Tourism and Aviation, Senator, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace affirmed his confidence in what Grand Bahama has to offer.
“I continue to believe that of all the destinations in this part of the world, the one with the greatest potential by far is Grand Bahama Island," he said. "And I believe that we are on the way to begin to prove that."
Among those present for the announcement were representatives from the Taxi Union, the Grand Bahama Port Authority, the Airport Company, and Customs and Immigration Departments.
Gregg Saretsky, Vice President of WestJet Vacations, signaled "exciting times for us."
WestJet's 737-700 will make two weekly flights from Toronto to Freeport, offering the market 14,000 seats this season.
By his company's forecast, WestJet expects to bring 12,000 visitors to Grand Bahama this winter, Saretsky said.
“I am confident that with the product (Grand Bahama offers) and our new direct air service, our twice weekly should be four times weekly by this time next year, and that is the goal,” he stated.
He also had high praise for the Club Grand Bahama concept calling it a “world class promotion.”
Wallace recalled that some 36 years ago, Grand Bahama was the number one destination in this part of the world for Canadian visitors. A large percentage of them went to West End.
The primary reason for that, he said, was because Grand Bahama was the closest destination to the eastern seaboard of Canada "and at the time we were very much alone in the tourism business.
"Since then many Caribbean countries got into tourism. The rate of growth for people who were competing was such that "we found ourselves receding into the background," said Vanderpool-Wallace.
Grand Bahama's proximity to the biggest market in the world "has to be reflected in the price to get to this destination," he said.
“We cannot sit here and find every single day as we used to find for a long period of time, that it is more expensive to come to Grand Bahama than any places of our competing destinations.
"We have to begin to end that and today is the beginning of making that over because we cannot continue in that vein,” he said.
The Ministry of Tourism has been "diligently" working with their partners in Grand Bahama to restore "the proximity advantage, and it is already beginning to prove effective, said the Minister.
"We have begun to discover why we haven’t been doing better and we are beginning to put that together.
“This is the first of a large number of announcements that we can make when people begin to see that coming to Grand Bahama is a great value for the customer and the airline.
“That is the potent combination that makes a significant difference in terms of our capacity to be able to promote Grand Bahama.
“For us to go out there and continue to promote something that is not competitive is a considerable waste of money.
"We are now beginning to get products together that are extraordinarily competitive and I think this is the opportunity we have been looking for Grand Bahama for a very long time,” said Vanderpool-Wallace. | | | | Reads : 504 | | | |
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