Bahamas leader blames media stories about the country’s spike in crime for hurting tourism

The prime minister of the Bahamas, worried about the impact a spike in crime is having on this island-nation’s crucial tourism industry, is suggesting a peculiar solution:

Get the crime stories off the front page.

Prime Minister Philip Davis is blaming the country’s tourism woes on local media’s reporting on the rising homicide rate, which led the U.S. embassy last month to issue an alert for American travelers to the sun-bleached archipelago just off the coast of Florida. The warning was followed by a State Department Travel advisory, warning U.S. citizens to “exercise increased caution” when considering traveling to The Bahamas.

At the time of the warnings, which were picked up by the international media, the homicide count was at 18. It has since shot up to 25.

“I want to call upon the press to be sensitive,” Davis said this week when he met with religious leaders in New Providence. “I think they should see their role as trying to help the country. I’m not saying not to report, but where you report, it may make a difference.”

During the discussions, Davis spoke about crime-fighting strategies. But he also lamented that local media reports are hurting tourism, highlighting incidents that did not make front page news in countries like Trinidad and the United States.

“Every bullet that is fired appears to be front page news on all of our daily news. And what happens, AP picks it up, Reuters picks it up... and it’s continuing.”

Davis’ plea, however, has ignited a political firestorm. The opposition Free National Movement is accusing Davis of trying to muffle the fourth estate and of hypocrisy, reminding him that when he was deputy leader of the Progressive Liberal Party in 2012 he supported his party’s use of crime as a campaign issue ahead of the general election. The PLP, out of power at the time, erected blue-and-yellow billboards across the capital of Nassau to highlight the murder rate under the FNM government. Located in areas frequented by tourists, the billboards read “490+ MURDERS.”

When asked about his position in 2012, Davis was quoted by local media as responding: “That’s the past. I am looking forward.”

“What I am saying now is, I now have evidence that this is impacting how it’s accepted in the international community,” he said. “I didn’t have evidence then on how it was accepted, and now that I know how it is accepted, I will say to the press, just be responsible in how you report to ensure that you don’t harm your country.”

Dr. Duane Sands, FNM Party chairman, said Davis should apologize for politicizing crime with the 2012 billboards and should stop trying to muffle the press.

“For the prime minister to make the kind of comment that he did negates his past position; the position that he held in 2012 where he was, ‘Are we about hiding the truth?’ to a position now where he says, ‘Well, that’s in the past,’“ Sands, a physician and former minister of public health, told the Miami Herald.

“The politics of the moment cannot be ignored and we make it very clear that, while we are all united in preserving the interest of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, the end does not justify the means that we negate the independence of the media, of the press, to report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Sands added.

He acknowledged that his country has a crime problem, but said the State Department’s warning is misleading. The violence, Sands said, is gang-related and has mostly affected locals in Nassau, on the island of New Providence, not tourists.

“While it is unique to the particular island of New Providence, it was a bit concerning that the travel warning went out for the entire Bahamas. It’s not an issue in Exuma, Eleuthera, Abaco, Long Island, etc. But the perception would be that it is dangerous to travel to The Bahamas, which it is not,” Sands said.

But tourists have not been immune to crime. Last week two women from Kentucky said they were drugged and raped when they got off their cruise ship on Grand Bahama island.

Last month, the State Department issued its periodic Travel Advisory for U.S. citizens. Though the Level 2 and Level 3 warnings for The Bahamas and Jamaica, respectively, did not change, the updates came amid a violent crime wave in the Caribbean countries. As a result, a number of international media stories erroneously reported the updates as a change in the warning levels.

Still, leaders now find themselves fighting the negative press and its impact on tourists’ behavior

“Right now, the hotels are seeing some fall off, but more importantly, those who are in the hotels today, they’re not coming out into the community,” Davis said at the meeting with religious leaders. “They’re not going to the restaurants, for example. They’re not going sightseeing as they used to.”