Bahamas Philately: The 1960’s - The Digital Philatelist

The real stimulus for tourism in the Bahamas started around the early 1960s. Cuba was one of the few competitive tourism markets in the Caribbean that posed a threat to the Bahamas in the early days. Their tourism sector collapsed in the wake of the Cuban Revolution and the US Embargo in 1961. Tourists who were going to Cuba were brought into Nassau and by 1968 the country had experienced its first one million-visitor year.

In the late 1950s a deep water port was created and work started on downtown Freeport in 1959. However, Grand Bahama did not succeed in creating the industrial community it planned and in the early 1960s gained permission to develop a tourism industry based on the opening of casinos. These casinos included Lucayan Beach Hotel, Holiday Inn and Kings Inn. Nassau soon followed and casinos were opened on Paradise Island and Nassau by the end of the 1960s.

However, in 1968 The Bahamas had achieved majority rule with the election of the Lynden Pindling Progressive Liberal Party and by 1973 The Islands of The Bahamas had achieved independence from the United Kingdom and became a self-governing country. This created uncertainty in the investment community and a number of investors pulled out forcing the Government to take over a number of hotels and attempt to operate them itself in an effort to maintain employment levels.

As the Bahamas entered the 1970s, much of the work undertaken during the 1950s and 1960s began to unravel.