The Issue

As the manager of an independent hotel along with other small, locally owned, hoteliers, we agreed and expressed our concerns about not being as visible online as some of the larger properties and chain hotels in the country.  The general consensus was that, smaller hotels in the country, with limited financial resources and e-commerce knowledge, are often lost in the shadows of the hotel giants when it comes to E-Commerce, E-Booking and overall on-line distribution and marketing.  For the majority of these hotels, their financial challenges have not awarded them the benefits of an IT department or staff, thus limiting them to fragmented knowledge from general and random online searches.

Not being part of the online distribution system is negatively affecting room occupancy and revenues of small hotels. Acquired data shows how Bahamian owned and independent operated hotels, unlike large foreign invested chain hotels and resorts in the country, have an average occupancy of 40% or less per annum with over 85% of these small hotels not making use of the online global distribution system. Most small hotels continue to depend on word-of-mouth and repeat guest which is not permitting change in the occupancies of these hotels.