Having the Tourism industry destroyed by their electorate was something the government could not afford. The new Premier, Lynden O. Pindling, who was seen by the black masses as a savior in the style of Moses releasing his people from bondage in Egypt, gave the following plea / threat after assuming the post of Minister of Tourism in 1967:

I want our waiters and maids to smile and be courteous more than ever before because you have something to smile for now. If you fail, you fail me and then I shall fail you.¹⁹

The subtle maneuver of placing the responsibility for campaign promises onto the people was quite the political slight of hand, but the appeal to the pride of the “waiters and maids” of Bahamaland must have been a difficult pill for Bahamians to swallow when the managers of the hotels were also white and / or expatriate and the only employment they could get was as “waiters and maids.” A new campaign was launched to steer the population in the right direction, it was entitled “Look up, move up, the world is watching.”²⁰ However the PLP soon discovered that placing a bridle on the racial pride that they had unleashed was not an easy thing to do.

Clement T. Maynard, a prominent Bahamian lawyer, took over the reigns of the Ministry of Tourism in 1969 and met the problem seemingly unchanged.²¹ In fact reports of bad service and abuse were on the rise. Simple attempts to threaten / bribe / cajole the population were obviously falling on deaf ears. A more creative approach was needed. In his 2007 memoirs Maynard describes his next effort as an attempt to “launch an educational programme to improve attitudes and make Bahamians more conscious of the value of Tourism to the economy and each member of the public.”²²

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