By Keile Campbell

The opening of the redeveloped Nassau Cruise Port is expected to give a boost to stakeholders from the hotels to the local shops and vendors in New Providence.

On the cruise port’s grand opening, Love97 spoke with President of Baha Mar Graeme Davis gave his thoughts on what the new cruise port means for the Bahamas as a whole.

“What really makes this special is, basically, 5 million cruise passengers coming here seeing the quality, they’ll say next time ‘I want to stay in Nassau,’ and that’s where Baha Mar has the opportunity to get a cruise conversion from a cruise passenger to a stay over, and when a stay over guest comes to the Bahamas, they are exponentially putting more money into the economy.”

“And so it’s great for all of us to have this type of quality here in Nassau and certainly I believe a catalyst for Downtown to really start to thrive and the competition will be there, and we’ll start to see a transformation to Downtown.”

The Baha Mar President was asked to expanded on the possible positive effect the cruise port may have on Baha Mar day pass purchases, to which, he does not eliminate the chance of that happening.

“We already have relationships with multiple cruise lines here for Baha Bay, our $200 million dollar waterpark, and on any given day we may have up to several hundred cruise passengers come for the day to Baha Bay, they may stop in our Current to look at our art program with John Cox and our executive art culture. Our Mini Blue, our professional miniature golf course. Come to Pizza Lab and have a pizza.”

“As this destination grows from a cruise passenger visitor stop over, it’s all great for the Bahamas, all great for Bahamians. We have 5,000 Bahamians working with us at Baha Mar and we appreciate this immensely.”

  
Meanwhile, recently occupied tenants of the newly opened Nassau Cruise Port look optimistically towards the future.

Last week, there was some discontent by some vendors who were allegedly dissatisfied with certain aspects and conditions of the space being provided for them, however, at the Nassau Cruise Ports grand opening, Love 97 news team spoke with some vendors and artisans on the big day.

“Well, I’m happy to be here, I was afforded the opportunity to be apart of the Nassau Cruise Port, not only to display my items, my Bahamian products, but also sell it to the whole world. So I’m grateful to be a part of that,” said one of the vendors at the cruise port’s opening.

“Rawson Square was really tough, it was tough, only the strong survive over there. And I’m one of the toughest and the strongest out here in the game. If they don’t see me, then the price isn’t right” said another vendor who used to occupy a space back in Rawson’s Square, the previous location for vendors and artisans before some made the move to Nassau Cruise Port.

In the past, concerns were raised over vendors and artisans livelihoods being affected with the opening of the cruise port, with Member of Parliament for Centerville Jomo Campbell, speaking on behalf of his constituents who work as vendors and artisans, expressed his hope that the new cruise port will increase business for the vendors.

Just before the opening of the cruise port, it’s Director Michael Maura Jr addressed some concerns about some vendors not receiving the opportunity to take tenancy at the new cruise port, to which he responded stating the government served as “landlords” to the spaces being provided and the Nassau Cruise Port went by their recommendations for who will occupy tenancy.