The Bahamas Tourism Ministry wants the world to know that most of the Bahamas islands are undamaged and open for business—and that more visitors means more funds for the rebuilding of devastated Grand Bahama and Abaco islands.
News coverage of Hurricane Dorian focused so much on damage to the central areas that many people have gotten the idea that the whole country was hit, not realizing how many islands over how large an area the Bahamas covers.
Ellison Thompson, deputy head of the agency, told reporters that “The Bahamas is a country of 700 islands and cays beginning 50 miles off the Florida coast and stretching for 750 miles from Bimini in the north to Inagua in the south. The distance between these areas are similar to the distance between Philadelphia and New York.. If NYC has an issue, it doesn’t affect Philadelphia.”