Disney Cruise Line No Longer to Receive Incentives from The Bahamas
Recently, the Bahamas just voted to allow Lighthouse Point on the island of Eleuthera to be developed by Disney Cruise to as a second private island. However, that is the only piece of good news coming out of the island country just east of the Bahamas.
Several online reports show that the Bahamas will no longer be offering monetary incentives for cruise ships to stop at Nassau and the islands of the Bahamas including Disney Cruise Line. Currently, the Bahamian government has offered up to $12 million a year to bring massive cruise ships to the small island nation.
The change in course you ask? The government of the Bahamas has learned that while the ships are stopping there, less and less passengers are getting off and spending their money on the island. The Bahamas’ Minister of Tourism Dionisio D’Aguilar stated, “Why are we paying them to bring cruise passengers to our port and then we’re finding that some of them are not coming off? So why are we giving incentives for people to come to Nassau and sit on the boat, eat their food and not spend money in our country?”
In lieu of giving the money directly to the cruise lines, the Bahamas will soon begin work on modernizing the current cruise ship terminal to entice cruise ship passengers off the ships and to spend money in the stores on dry land. D’Aguilar said, “The goal is once this transformation has taken place, there will be a better offering of excursions, a better offering of goods, a better offering of food and beverage options, the cruise passengers will be minded – not only the cruise passengers but also the crew – will be minded to come off the ships and spend more money in the port.”
Disney Criuse Line has not commented on this latest development from the Bahamas at t this time.
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