Monthly Economic and Financial Developments (MEFD) February 2025
Published: Monday March 31st, 2025
Domestic Economic Developments
Overview
During the month of February, indications are that the domestic economy’s expanded at a slower pace than in same period in 2024, as economic indicators continued to converge closer to their expected medium-term potential. Tourism momentum tempered, as the high value-added stopover segment remained under constrained accommodation capacity; albeit healthy gains persisted in the sea component. Monetary sector developments featured gains in the broad measure of banking sector liquidity, with incremental accumulation in the deposit base, contrasting with the reduction in domestic credit. Further, the growth in external reserves expaned––although seasonally moderated––underpinned by a slowdown in net foreign currency inflows through the private sector, combined with a rise in outflows via the public sector.
Real Sector
Tourism
Monthly data suggests that the tourism sector output continued to be significantly paced by outcomes for the high-value stopover category, although healthy gains persisted for the cruise segment.
According to official data from the Ministry of Tourism, total visitor arrivals grew by 7.8% to 1.0 million visitors in the month of January, vis-à-vis the comparable period of 2024. Leading this outturn, sea traffic increased by 10.0% to 0.9 million. However, air passengers declined by 4.7% to 0.1 million.
A disaggregation by major port of entry showed that total arrivals to New Providence rose by 0.7% to 0.5 million, relative to the same period of the prior year. Although sea arrivals increased by 2.8% to 0.4 million, this contrasted with the 6.0% decline in air traffic to 0.1 million. Further, arrivals to the Family Islands advanced by 18.5% to 0.5 million, reflecting a 19.7% expansion in sea passengers to 0.5 million, vis-à-vis a 3.2% falloff in air arrivals to 24,802. Conversely, total arrivals to Grand Bahama declined by 24.6% to 36,654, underpinned by a 29.2% reduction in sea passengers to 30,905, which outpaced a 16.9% gain in air arrivals to 5,749.
According to the most recent data provided by the Nassau Airport Development Company Limited (NAD) total departures—net of domestic passengers—declined by 3.8% to 0.13 million in February, relative to the same period in 2024. In particular, U.S. departures fell by 3.7% to 107,226, while non-U.S. departures decreased by 4.5% to 19,943 vis-à-vis the comparative period last year.
On a year-to-date basis, total outbound traffic also reduced, by 4.3% to 0.3 million. Specifically, U.S. departures fell by 4.3% to 0.2 million, while international departures contracted by 4.1% to 0.04 million relative to the same period last year.
In the short-term vacation rental market, inflows were strengthened compared to 2024. Data provided by AirDNA revealed that in February, total room nights sold improved by 6.2% to 51,986, compared to the same period in 2024. Given increased listings, the occupancy rates for both hotel comparable and entire place listings fell by 4.7 percentage points to 57.2% and by 3.6 percentage points to 52.4%, respectively. However, the average daily room rate (ADR) for entire place listings increased by 3.4% to $690.00. Conversely, the ADR for hotel comparable listings declined by 1.5% to $192.07.
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