News Report: Tourism ministry seeking more boutique cruise line visits to Family Islands
- BCCEC
- May 28
- 2 min read
Published by: Chester Robards, The Nassau Guardian, May 28th, 2025
The Ministry of Tourism, Investments and Aviation is exploring destination options in farther-flung Bahamian islands for boutique cruise lines that carry far fewer passengers than the lines with mega ships that frequent chiefly the northern islands, Tourism Director General Latia Duncombe told members of the media yesterday.
Duncombe, who spoke to the media during the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers’ Confederation’s Power Brunch, aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Symphony of the Seas cruise ship, said her ministry’s cruise and maritime unit is involved in piecing together curated experiences with boutique cruise lines.
“We attend Seatrade [conference] every year, and we speak to the traditional cruise lines... and the boutique cruise lines, as well as the smaller ones and more intimate ones with 200, 300, 400 passengers, so that we can look at opportunities to deliver visits to our Family Islands as well,” said Duncombe.
“It’s a different type of visitor for the Family Islands, it’s not 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 visitors, it’s in the hundreds. We also work with the island administrators, and with the local communities.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Crystal Cruises began a seven-night, all-Bahamas cruise that created economic opportunities for people on San Salvador, Exuma and Long Island. The cruise line’s visits to those island gave residents new ways of earning income.
Crystal Cruises helped those islanders set up shore excursions. On Gordon’s Beach, Long Island, cruise passengers enjoyed big bowls of locally grown fruit provided by vendors, and had the opportunity to ask questions about the sugar apples, guineps, sappodillys and tamarinds they were given.
Crystal Cruises’ all-Bahamas cruise ended when Crystal’s parent company Genting Hong Kong went bankrupt.
Duncombe said moving boutique cruises into the Family Islands will balance cruise line access to the farther, smaller islands that do not have the cruise traffic of Nassau, Grand Bahama, and the cruise lines’ private islands.
“When we look at the 16 islands, they all have something different to offer,” she said.
“It’s bringing the cruise ship passenger to the islands for that curated experience. But again, it’s not mass tourism or over-tourism, it’s making sure that the very pristine nature of those islands is still preserved, but that the visitor can still enjoy them, and our locals can benefit from that as well.”
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