Bahamas Hotel & Tourism Association

A new law imposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is setting off alarm bells among members of the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA).

The Ministry of Tourism is seeking to attract up to 1.8 million stopover visitors in 2013 by cultivating new markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Obie Wilchcombe, the minister of tourism, announced yesterday that a number of meetings are scheduled with representatives from these markets, many of which have expressed an active interest in The Bahamas. His comments came at press conference ahead of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association’s (CHTA) Caribbean Travel Marketplace 2013, beginning on January 20 at Atlantis.

The Bahamas saw double-digit growth in arrivals last year in three Latin American markets, picking up the slack from European counties still in the depths of financial crisis.