The Bahamas has suffered a projected 7.3 percent drop in tourism arrivals for 2011, according to a Market Trend report from a leading Caribbean consultancy firm.

The BCQS International Market Trend Report 2011, measuring economic data from nine countries in the region, attributes the plummet to a dependency on U.S. travelers.

Simon Taylor, a director at BCQS International and office manager at Turks and Caicos, said The Bahamas must strive to diversify its tourist base as a hedge against difficult financial times.

“The trend across the region is up, so that is encouraging, however, The Bahamas is probably the destination that most relies on the U.S. market. And obviously that is the market that has suffered the most with regards to overseas travel and tourism numbers,”said Taylor.

As one of the principle editors of the report, he said 1,095,272 U.S. tourists visited The Bahamas in 2011. The next highest demographic is Canada at just 119,230. Only 78,0118 European travelers arrived in The Bahamas in 2011.

In total, The Bahamas had 1,386,053 arrivals in 2011, according to the report, which represents a 7.3 percent decline.

It was the second worst drop of all Caribbean nations, Taylor pointed out, with Trinidad & Tobago coming in with the worst decline of 7.56 percent and the British Virgin Islands suffering a loss of 7.21 percent.

St. Lucia, Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands saw the highest numbers for 2011, coming in with rises of 11.16 per cent, 9.80 per cent and 8.32 per cent respectively.

Jamaica enjoyed a 5.09 per cent spike and Barbados went up by 5.95 percent compared to last year.

In explaining the results, Taylor said Caribbean nations with less reliance on the U.S. market have done well.

“Countries such as St. Lucia and Barbados attract lots of Canadians and Europeans. Canada in particular has fared better than the U.S. in terms of the economy,” he said.

“As a destination, it will make The Bahamas more able to take the bumps in the road with further diversification.”

However, David Johnson, the director general at the Ministry of Tourism, questioned some findings in the report.

He revealed that approximate projections for The Bahamas in 2011 are more in the range of a 3 per cent decline, although he did refer to the U.S. market as “soft”.

“I think overall that is a greater decline than we expected,” he said. “It is not in keeping with what we projected.”

In regards to diversification, Johnson insisted that the diversification, while needed, has already begun. The Ministry of Tourism continues to invest in down markets in down times, he added, with a focus on the long term.

That said, he said “a greater mix of our source market will serve us better”.

Johnson added that The Bahamas is investing in both Canada and in particular South America to take advantage of these growing markets. The government is doing what it can to accommodate tourists from South America in terms of visa issues.

“There is tremendous traffic there,” he felt. “It’s fundamental to the Ministry of Tourism’s business strategy.”

That said, poor tourism arrivals, according to the BCQS report, don’t bode well for any Bahamian stakeholders. In 2011, The Bahamas comprised 22 pe rcent of the total tourism pie in the region, compared to 24 per cent in 2010. A total of 6,127,489 tourists came to the Caribbean in 2011, as opposed to 6,088,517 in 2010.(Jeffery Todd is the Business Editor of the Nassau Guardian)