Tourism minister Shawn Crockwell said he was optimistic about visitor arrivals in the coming year, despite reduced guarantees for airlines.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette, Mr Crockwell said that the Bermuda Government had “significantly reduced” its Minimum Revenue Guarantee (MRG) liability, through which airlines are guaranteed a minimum return for their service.

“Normally when you have new flights or new gateways there has to be some form of subsidisation,” he said. “I am proud to say — and some people may say this is not a good thing — that we have as a government significantly reduced our MRG liability.

“Most tourism destinations have a significant MRG liability because you want to preserve your flights, but quite a few of our flights have been doing well, and therefore we have not been forced to pay out those MRGs. We do have MRGs, and you will see them in the budget, but they are significantly less than what we have paid out year after year.

“Of course I am the tourism minister, and I would tussle with the finance minister for MRG if we need a flight that would spur additional air arrivals.”

Mr Crockwell said that there has been an increase in flights to the Island, saying there will be additional flights out of New York next month and work is under way to ensure direct flights from Baltimore and Washington DC year round. He said by adding additional flights and carriers, the cost of travel to the Island should fall.

“The only way to get the cost of flights down is by adding competition to that route,” he said. “We saw that very successfully occur with Air Canada and WestJet. That almost cut the cost of flights in half and those flights continue to be very successful.

“We are still looking to get an additional flight coming from the UK to put some competition to British Airways, but we are still working very closely with British Airways because they are one of our major partners.

“We are happy with the direction the flights are going. I know people always want more flights because that is an issue. When you come to Bermuda it’s not like other destinations where you can fly in, spend two days and fly out. You kind of get trapped in Bermuda sometimes because there are only flights on certain days.”

Meanwhile, he said the Ministry was looking forward to a bigger cruise ship season this year, noting that the Island is expected to be visited for the first time by the new Anthem of the Seas.

“They will be coming for the first time, and that’s why we had to do the dredging of the North Channel. All of that got done very successfully, so they will be coming this year and bringing visitors to the Island.”

While Mr Crockwell said the Bermuda Tourism Authority may have had a rocky start, he believes Bermuda will start to reap the benefits of their hard work this year.

“The projections that I have seen already are very encouraging,” he said. “The BTA are laying the foundation for year-on-year growth rather than making kneejerk reactions to the market to boost numbers. Sometimes you have to plan your way forward for long-term, sustainable growth.

“One of the things we didn’t do, we didn’t look at group business and prepare for group business two or three years in advance, but that is what you have to do to attract group business.

“There was a gap of a few years when there was no real, aggressive marketing and recruitment for group business. The BTA have stepped in, they have filled that void, and the information I have is we should see a significant uptick in air arrivals for the entire year.

“You don’t turn 30 years of decline overnight, or even in two or three years, but the hard work they have done, we will start to see the benefits of this year.”