Destiny Johnson

Billions of dollars in tourism investments are in the pipeline for all islands across The Bahamas.
This coming from Minister of Tourism Investments and Aviation Deputy Prime Minister Chester
Cooper as he again applauded the growth in stop over visitors coming into the country year after
year.
He said up to 3,000 jobs will be created out of these projects. “We are seeing the coming of the
Hilton later this year, and that would be positive for room capacity; and we see in the pipeline
Melia is going to be announcing some significant, additions to overall rooms.”
Continuing he said, “We have about $6 billion; generally $7 billion of new investments in the
pipeline, with maybe $6 billion related to tourism. Some of it is already coming out of the
pipeline. We have Hog Cay and the Exumas for example, which is about a $300 million
investment. We see the construction levels there are really ramping up and we also see Montage
Cay in Abaco were construction is well on the way.”
“So I’m positive about what I’m seeing generally in terms of what we will be able to offer in
future years; we believe we can increase the overall percentage of stop overs within the next few
years,” said Mr Cooper.
After confirming that $6 billion of new investments are currently approved in the tourism sector,
Mr Cooper listed some to the projects.
“In the Exumas, it’s roughly $1. 5 billion, we have Elizabeth Island where construction is
underway; in the early stages but underway nonetheless; we have Hog Cay as I mentioned
before, construction there is booming, we have Cave Cay with all of approvals received, and we
anticipate construction to begin there; we have a project in Samson Cay where some renovations
have started, there are two other small projects in Samson Cay which have not yet started, so
they are in varying stages but construction work has begun in many of these projects already,” he
said.
Mr Cooper said his ministry is currently working with the tourism investment authority and
multi-agency groups to help facilitate other projects out of the pipeline.
Given the numerous projects planned, Mr. Cooper asserted that room capacity must and will be
increased. “I think we will increase overall room capacity in the next three years by perhaps 30
percent maybe 40 percent,” he anticipates.
He said he did not have the numbers in the front of him, but thinks it will be fairly dramatic if the
government is able to quickly get these projects going.
“In South Eleuthera, for example,” he said, “we have the Ritz, that’s making fairly significant
progress; Cotton Bay, you know there’s talks there as well of steady progress in South Abaco.

There are two very large projects in the $800 million range, so I expect if we are able to really
get these projects going quickly in the next three to five years, I would say that we’d be able to
dramatically increase room capacity.”
While he believes the fastest way to grow the economy is through foreign direct investments, the
Deputy Prime Minister said he hopes to see greater Bahamian investment in the Bahamian
economy.