"I think that the prognosis for tourism in 2008 is very, very good. We just need to be smarter about where we position ourselves, how we position ourselves, where we spend our money, when we spend our money," she said in an interview with the Journal.

"I think the prime minister has seen it fit to give us the incremental funds because I know he appreciates this is not the time to cut back on spending, but the time to, in fact, increase our spending because the net gain will be worth it."

The director general said the ministry’s 2007-2008 advertising budget is just over $5 million.

"That’s not a lot of money," Ms Walkine said.

She indicated that the new allocation would add to what was really an "under-funded" advertising budget.

At a meet the press event Sunday, the prime minister said the Ministry of Tourism had proposed some additional strategies and requested more money.

"We are likely to when we do the midterm budget to make available to Tourism an additional $12 million this year for additional expenditure in Europe and America and elsewhere," he told reporters.

Ms. Walkine said the money would be used to carry out a full-fledged ad campaign in the Unites States through its recently retained U.S. based advertising agency.

"The intent really is to have them as quickly as is possible produce a new campaign for us which will be able to run as pervasively as possible all across the states, given the fact that there is a softening in the U.S. economy," Ms. Walkine said.

She noted that not all states are hard hit by the looming recession. Those resilient states are going to receive the brunt of The Bahamas’ ad efforts.

"Most of the $12 million will be used in the United States, but we are going to be producing a multi-media campaign. We are going to have new television ads. We will have new radio ads, new print ads in magazines and newspapers and we will also have a very heavy online campaign…we are going to have an integrated campaign," Ms Walkine said.

"Some of the money will also be spent in the UK and Europe. Again, the reason for that is because European economies are performing fairly well although they too have felt some of the impacts of the U.S. economy."

She said the ministry has seen "good response" to minimal ad efforts.

Another market where tourism officials have seen "tremendous response" to a basic ad budget is Canada, according to the director general.

"The Canadian dollar has strengthened considerably and Canadian consumers are finding The Bahamas very attractive because we have for them everything they are looking for – the sun, the sand and the sea," Ms Walkine said.

"We have the foreign vacation experiences and all at a good price. We will be looking at how we can position ourselves more firmly in Canada where we are seeing more airlift come out of certain markets particularly western Canada."

Ms Walkine said the message going out from The Bahamas to potential tourists will be a precise and targeted one.

"We don’t want to sound as though we are having a distress sale or anything of that kind," she said.

The director general said the Ministry of Tourism together with its hotel and airline partners now have to put their heads together and agree on some "very attractive, very aggressive" preferential pricing to stimulate potential travelers in depressed markets to consider The Bahamas for a quick getaway vacation.