BONHATA: political instability undermines the future of Bonaire’s tourism sector

BONHATA, the Hotel & Tourism Association representing hotels and tourism businesses on Bonaire, expresses serious concern about the island’s ongoing political instability and its consequences for the economy and the sector.
Between October 2023 and March 31, 2026, Bonaire experienced four confirmed collapses of its Executive Council (Bestuurscollege); since June 30, a fifth has been looming. Each change brings new priorities, new negotiating partners, and delays in matters that require continuity above all: spatial planning, sustainable development, infrastructure, and the balance between growth and the island’s carrying capacity. Policy that should be built up over several years is repeatedly set back to square one as a result.
Bonaire’s economy leans on tourism more than ever. The sector provides jobs for thousands of island residents and is one of the most important sources of income for the local community, from hotels and restaurants to dive schools, transportation, and retail.
While political actors in Kralendijk fight over positions and portfolios, the execution of much-needed policy has come to a standstill. Permitting processes are delayed, investment decisions are postponed, and long-term plans for the sustainable development of nature and tourism fail to get off the ground. In this context, standstill is not a neutral state: it means regression. While policy and vision remain stalled, the cost of living and doing business on the island keeps rising unabated, as the recent increase in electricity rates also shows. Sector employees feel this first and hardest: their disposable income comes under direct pressure, while wages are not rising at the same pace.
These concerns are no longer theoretical. BONHATA is already receiving troubling signals from its members: lower occupancy figures and growing uncertainty about the near future. The consequences of political standstill are therefore already being felt, even before a potential next crisis arrives.
BONHATA calls on the island’s political leaders to give the interests of this sector, and by extension the wider Bonairian community, more weight than internal disputes and personal positions. The island’s future requires leaders who take responsibility for the long term, not another round of political turmoil that keeps resetting policy to square one. As the representative of the hotel and tourism sector, BONHATA remains committed to a stable, predictable policy climate, in the interest of the employees, entrepreneurs, and community that depend on this sector.