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Are you ready for customers who check online first?

The Bahamas Digital Readiness Index (BDRI), published by DDigiLeads, is a public reading of 2,600 Bahamian businesses on the Four Digital Doors in 2026, and you can check yours.

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Share of 2,600 businesses with each door open

  • Google Business Profile 60.5%
  • Website 38.2%
  • Facebook Page 33.2%
  • WhatsApp 22.7%

A door counts as open only when a customer can find it and use it.

The 2026 index

See every door, industry by industry

Bahamian customers and visitors look for businesses online.

Nearly everyone could go online in the Bahamas National Statistical Institute’s 2022 census. Most overnight visitors planned online over TV or radio, the Ministry of Tourism found in 2021.

78.8%

2,048 of the 2,600 Bahamian businesses the index read have at least one door open. 112 have all four.

  • 12.5 million

    visitors in 2025, a record, most on cruise ships

  • 84%

    of visitors who stayed used Google to plan the trip in 2021, up from 47% in 2003

  • 2%

    of visitors who stayed came mainly to see friends or family in 2024, so few of them had a local to ask

Sources: Ministry of Tourism, 2025 visitor count and exit surveys of visitors who stayed, 2021 and 2024

In Insights: why businesses that serve visitors may lead online

Anyone can use the index to see which Bahamian businesses customers can reach online.

The index uses only public information, and it is free.

  • Business owners

    See which of your Four Digital Doors a customer can use today. The score covers what customers can see online.

    Check your score

  • Institutions

    Use the 2026 edition as a baseline for a programme. It covers all eight industries and all Four Digital Doors, and the method is published in full.

    For institutions

  • Everyone else

    Read guides that explain each door, how customers look for a business and how a business gets paid.

    Read Insights

How the index was built

Four places a customer checks before they buy.

Together they are the Four Digital Doors, and each door is a way a customer who is looking can reach you. Each card opens that door’s webpage: what the index checks, who has it open and how to open yours.

  • Google Business Profile

    What a customer sees in Google search and Google Maps, before they ever reach a website.

  • Website

    The one door a business owns outright. No platform sets the rules on it.

  • Facebook Page

    A Facebook Page, not a personal profile. Often the first place a customer checks you are still trading.

  • WhatsApp

    The channel Bahamian customers actually message on, and the least open door in the country.

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The Four Digital Doors, explained together

Your customers are already online. Next, they may come to expect an open door at every business.

Most visitors who stay come from the United States, where messaging and paying without cash are everyday habits. In The Bahamas, internet access rose from 64.7% of people in 2010 to 92.3% in 2022. The country is about as online as the United States, and most adults use social media and message on WhatsApp. Nearly all children aged ten to fourteen were online in 2022, long before most of them shop on their own. Each door is public, so any door a business opens reaches visitors and Bahamian customers alike. As more businesses open doors for visitors, Bahamian customers can come to expect the same from every business.

Where AI search and faster payments come in

A customer can ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI to find a business, instead of or alongside a Google search. Either one answers from what is published about each business, such as its website, Google listing and reviews. Bahamian banks and payment apps let a business send a link in a chat, and any customer can tap it to pay. A business with WhatsApp or a Facebook Page open can get paid this way, with no website or overseas account. The Central Bank aims to launch its Fast Payment System by the first quarter of 2027. A bank transfer can then arrive in seconds instead of a business day later.

Sources

  • Asking an AI to find a business: Google and OpenAI help webpages, 2026
  • Payment links in a chat: Bahamian banks and payment apps, their own webpages, 2026
  • The Fast Payment System: Central Bank of The Bahamas, 2026

Sources

  • Where most visitors who stay come from: Ministry of Tourism, visitor demographics, 2024
  • Messaging and paying without cash in the United States: YouGov and the Federal Reserve, US surveys, 2026
  • Internet access in 2010 and 2022, and children online in 2022: Bahamas National Statistical Institute, 2010 and 2022 censuses
  • How online The Bahamas is, and social media use: DataReportal, Digital 2026
  • WhatsApp use: URCA, mobile market survey, 2021

In Insights: The Bahamas online in 2026

Businesses with more doors open tend to have more Google reviews.

Businesses with all four doors open have the highest median count of Google reviews. The chart cannot show that doors bring reviews, because busy businesses may build both.

Median Google reviews

Each number is the median, the middle business’s count in its group, across every business in the index. Reviews sit on the Google Business Profile, so a business with no Google listing the index found has none to count. Every business with no doors open has no Google listing the index found, and so do nearly half of those with one door open.

Reviews by doors open, on The Index

Find where your industry stands.

Each row opens the full reading for that industry. Tourism, the industry that serves visitors most directly, has the highest average score and the most doors open per business.

Ordered by the number of businesses read, largest first. Each business gets a score out of 100 for its Four Digital Doors, and Score is its industry’s average. The mark on each bar is the national average, 36.8.

Industry Score Businesses Avg doors open
Restaurants full reading for this industry 40.2 573 1.70
Professional Services full reading for this industry 35.2 416 1.41
Retail full reading for this industry 28.3 399 1.33
Tourism full reading for this industry 50.0 338 2.08
Salons and Beauty full reading for this industry 35.2 336 1.48
Auto Services full reading for this industry 36.3 255 1.45
Home Services full reading for this industry 30.4 253 1.24
Creative Services full reading for this industry 36.2 30 1.53

Every industry against every door

Customers notice when they cannot reach a business, and they say so in public.

A study in Insights read 20,700 public Google reviews, captured in June 2026, of 560 Bahamian restaurant and tourism businesses. At about one in four of those businesses, a reviewer said they could not reach the business, confirm a booking or get a refund, and some said nobody answered at all. Others found the hours on the Google listing wrong, or the business shut during hours the listing gave.

In Insights: what reviewers say about Bahamian restaurants and tours

See what customers see when they check your business.

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