The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and Aviation has been hard at work turning their image around after the nightmarish Frye Festival two years ago.
They've launched a new advertising campaign to promote the Bahamas with Grammy Award-winning and Bahamian-American singer, Lenny Kravitz as the face of the campaign.
The new ads focus on Kravitz's 1998 hit, "Fly Away." It's about driving his daughter Zoe to school in the Bahamas. Even though he was born in the U.S., Kravitz was connected to the Bahamas through family, visited often and even recorded albums there.
"It's the place I go to be myself," he said, according to Bloomberg. "I am a local in the Bahamas. They are aware of what I do. They don't care about that."
At an event in New York on Thursday night, tourism officials shared their vision and why the Bahamas is a great destination.
"We all know how important tourism is to the Bahamas," said Minister Dionsio D'Aguilar, who hosted the festivities. "It is vital to our economy and our people."
The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has increased their outreach in the past year and a half and it seems to be working. According to D'Aguilar, stopover visits increased by 17 percent last year, and the tourism agency is seeing 6 million annual visitors per year, mostly from the U.S., but also from Canada, the U.K. and Germany.
For those who don't recall, the Fyre Festival was hosted in 2017 on Great Exuma and billed as a luxury music festival, but it was far from it. There were issues with local vendors, workers and contractors not getting paid and promised luxury accommodations and food that turned out to be sandwiches and FEMA tents.
The Bahamas tourism agency distanced itself from the disaster and labeled it as a "private event."
While Fyre Festival was a bust, attendees at the New York event asked Kravitz if he had any plans to play shows on the island as part of the Bahamas' campaign.
"Good idea," said Kravitz. "I have never played a real concert in the Bahamas."
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