Data finding
What the most digitally ready Bahamian businesses have in common
For chambers, banks and programmes choosing a cohort
Tourism
Bahamian tourism is ahead of the country on every door
The 2026 Bahamas Digital Readiness Index checked 338 tourism firms on Google Business Profile, website, Facebook Page (not a personal profile) and WhatsApp.
Share of 338 businesses with each door open
- Google Business Profile : 73.4%. Country 60.5%.
- Website : 58.3%. Country 38.2%.
- Facebook Page : 42.6%. Country 33.2%.
- WhatsApp : 33.7%. Country 22.7%.
Average score 50.0 of 100 · rank 1 of 8
The 2026 index
WhatsApp is where Bahamian tourism businesses have the most room.
33.7%
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95.9%
of these tourism businesses have a phone number in public listings, the numbers the index checked for WhatsApp.
For most operators the index did not find the listed number on WhatsApp. A guest abroad who wants to ask about a pickup or a changed plan has to make an international call. Registering a WhatsApp Business number is free, and setting it up with the pickup point and booking link takes an evening or more.
How a WhatsApp Business number gets set up
What guests’ Google reviews say about reaching an operator
In a June 2026 study of Google reviews of Bahamian tourism businesses, reaching the business, bookings and cancellations drew the most complaints at boat tours. A guest whose snorkel trip was called off for weather wrote in December 2025: “there was 0 communication regarding this cancellation.”
The Google Business Profile, website and WhatsApp count most for tourism.
Visitors find an operator on Google, check it on the website they book through and confirm the trip on WhatsApp.
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Google Business Profile
Required · 28 points
A visitor planning a trip builds a shortlist on Google, and an operator with no listing is not on it.
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Website
Required · 28 points
The site is where a guest checks that you are real and books direct, instead of through a platform that takes a cut of the sale.
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Facebook Page
Recommended · 16 points
A Facebook Page helps you stay in front of past guests and market a season, though visitors tend to research on search, your own website and the review platforms first.
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WhatsApp
Required · 28 points
A guest who has checked you on the website confirms the pickup and the day’s details here, from any country, without an international call.
Required: central to how this industry’s customers find, trust and contact a business, so it carries the most points.
Recommended: useful, but customers can still find and contact the business through its other open doors.
The points on the four cards add up to 100, the most any business can score in any industry.
How tourism businesses compare with the country, door by door.
The website is where Bahamian tourism businesses are furthest ahead of the country.
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Tourism open share by door · the 2026 index All eight industries, compared
Bahamian tourism businesses have claimed their Google listings more often than any other industry.
Claiming a listing lets a business correct its details and answer its reviews.
About two in ten found listings are not claimed by the business.
- Claimed by the business 195
- Not claimed by the business 52
Of the 247 found listings where claim status could be determined. A found listing counts as an open door whether or not it is claimed. Across the country, nearly four in ten are not claimed.
So most operators with a listing can already keep the season’s hours and the pickup point right where visitors plan, and answer every review a guest leaves. If yours is still unclaimed, claiming it is free and starts from the listing itself, and Google’s check takes days to a week or more.
AI assistants answer visitors from what is published about each operator.
Most visitors who stayed on the islands in 2024 booked some or all of the trip online, and most came from the United States, the Ministry of Tourism’s exit survey found. ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode work in The Bahamas and the United States, so a visitor can ask one to plan the trip before they arrive. In Jamaica, the tourist board has begun checking whether its tourism information is written in a way machines can read, The Gleaner reported in September 2026. A board official put the test for a tour operator as one question: can a machine tell who you are, where you are, what you offer, whether the information is current and how someone books with you? Bahamian tourism already leads the country on websites, the door where all five of those answers can be written out in full.
Sources: Ministry of Tourism, visitor demographics 2024 · OpenAI Help Center and Google Search Help, read 26 September 2026 · The Gleaner, 23 September 2026, read 26 September 2026
Of the Four Digital Doors, WhatsApp comes next for most tourism businesses.
The Google Business Profile and the website, where visitors find and book you, come first, and just over half of tourism businesses already have both.
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Google Business Profile
Required
Guests find you here while they plan the trip. Your photos, reviews and booking link sit on your Google Business Profile.
Short to start, days to a week or more for Google’s check, an evening to fill in
- Set it up properly
- Claim and verify it. Search your business on Google and complete the check Google asks for, then add the season’s hours and the pickup point. Claiming is free.
Make it work harder
Add your booking link and a photo from each trip. Change the hours the week the season changes. Ask every guest for a review with the profile’s own link, and answer each one. Once a month, read its count of website clicks and calls.
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Website
Required
This is the one door you own. A guest reads the trips, prices and pickup point here and books with no platform fee.
A few evenings with a builder, weeks with a professional
- Set it up properly
- A booking-platform profile counts to start. Your own website needs the trips, prices, times, pickup point and a way to book. Domain and hosting carry a yearly cost.
Make it work harder
Put a book button and the WhatsApp link on every webpage, and point your Google booking link here. Take a deposit by a payment link from your bank or a payment app. Keep prices and times the same on every door. Count bookings by source each month.
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WhatsApp Business
Required
Guests talk to you here. A guest still at home asks a question, and the pickup time and any weather change are confirmed in the chat.
Short to register, an evening or more to set up
- Set it up properly
- Register WhatsApp Business on a number kept for the business. The app is free. Fill in the business profile with hours, the pickup point and the booking link.
Make it work harder
Write a quick reply for the day-before confirmation. Set business hours and an away message for when you are out on a trip. Message guests the moment weather changes a trip. Put the business name beside the number everywhere.
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Facebook Page
Recommended
This door reaches people who were not looking for you today. Short videos of real trips keep past and future guests seeing you.
An evening if the photos are to hand, longer from nothing
- Set it up properly
- Create a Facebook Page for the business. Do not run the business from a personal profile. Fill in the category, About section, hours and the booking link. Publish a first post.
Make it work harder
Post short videos and photos from real trips often, with the WhatsApp number in the post, so a past guest sees a business still running. Add the WhatsApp button. Answer messages daily. Meta Business Suite shows what each post reached.
After the doors are open
Open doors need a weekly habit: the same hours, prices and contact number on every door, and every message answered. A guest can find you on your Google Business Profile, book on your website, confirm the pickup in WhatsApp Business and keep seeing your trips on your Facebook Page. Your WhatsApp chats show where guests write from and what they ask before booking, and your Google reviews show what they say after the trip.
Need help opening these doors or getting more from them? DDigiLeads does this work for Bahamian businesses. Talk to us
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The Bahamas Digital Readiness Index found that Bahamian tourism businesses open more of the Four Digital Doors than any other industry.