The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism in a formal statement released on August 2nd, 2017, announced a major reorganization to be undertaken within the ministry. The statement issued is as follows:
Bahamas Ministry of Tourism Statement
August 2, 2017
The Ministry of Tourism is currently undergoing a reorganization and strategic planning exercise to rationalize its activities and plans moving forward.
After careful analysis of the budget for fiscal 2017/2018 and review of the organizational structure it is critical that we implement cost-cutting strategies within the Ministry of Tourism as in this reorganizational phase, it is imperative that costs are reduced and efficiencies increased given that seventy-five percent of our budget is fixed costs with few dollars left for marketing, promotion and sales.
Unfortunately, a component of this plan is a workforce reduction strategy that must be executed as we strive towards creating a leaner and more streamlined and efficient organization. This difficult process includes inter alia, reassignments, dissolution of certain departments, repatriations, retirement and terminations.
The decision to right size the organization is a challenging one as we are cognizant of the fact that it impacts the lives of fellow Bahamians. It would have been fiscally irresponsible and counterproductive to continue with operational costs outweighing the available marketing budget, to execute our primary mandates, which are to grow our tourism industry, improve our product and increase visitor arrivals.
