Tourism Corporation Bonaire looks back at a successful first Cruise Town Hall Meeting

Tourism Corporation Bonaire (TCB) organized its first Annual Town Hall Meeting on October 24th, 2022 at Plaza Beach and Dive Resort.

Commissioner of Economic Affairs and Tourism, Hennyson Thielman and CEO of TCB, Miles Mercera presented during the town hall session.

According to Thielman, the vision of one call a day has been implemented as part of the Tourism Recovery Plan to have a better balance between tourism, freight movements, the pressure on unique aspects of the island and environmental challenges. All due to the growth on the Island of both tourist as residents’ numbers. The well-being of the local community, fair competition and crowd management and certified tour guides and service providers play a key role in the vision for cruise development on the island. Thielman further made use of the opportunity of the cruise town hall meeting to understand possible concerns and to receive feedback from the industry partners which included improvements on cruise terminal facilities, public toilets and signage programs on the island for better on-island crowd management and infrastructural improvements.

TCB in the representation of Miles Mercera shared information about the number of cruise ships that visited the island between September 2021 and September 2022. A total of 149 cruise ships visited the island with a total of 212,964 cruise passengers. Also, some cruise tourism facts, the average amount of hours in port is 4.28. Top shore excursion experiences according to our cruise visitors are scuba diving, land sailing and snorkel catamaran. Additionally, the friendliness of our locals received the highest score from visitors.

TCB further elaborated on the launch of the new website, and have some upcoming projects related to the cruise industry like, the WiFi project, rebranded information booths, and signage project to name a few.

Starting November TCB will introduce the exit survey program for cruise visitors, where they can provide their feedback on their experience on the island. By filling out the survey they have a chance to win a trip back to the island.

The first Cruise Town Hall meeting was well attended by around 70 people that work in the cruise sector, and they had a lot of questions and are excited for the future.