Monday September 21, 2009, 4:05 am
"A tour guide approaches a group of American visitors asking if they want a ride in his horse and carriage - they decline.

"Things are slow, people just walk around the shops and are not even buying anything," the guide says, shrugging his shoulders.

The effects of the global financial crisis have hit the tourism industry hard and no more so than here in the Bahamas, where the economic slowdown has also made immigration a big issue.

Disparity of wealth

The Bahamas are a collection of some 700 islands that lie only 80 km (50 miles) away from the US mainland, with Florida to the north, stretching all the way south to just off the coast of Haiti.

It is one of the wealthiest of Caribbean nations but its neighbour - Haiti - is the complete opposite. More than half of the nine million people who live there have to survive on less than half a dollar a day."

Read more at site..

Monday September 21, 2009, 7:13 am
Thannnxxx. so true ... and this is one of the first industries to fel the effect of the down turn in the economy... hopefully things will start to turn so that they can resume their lives again