The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Several Nassau/Paradise Island hotel operators yesterday reported a mixed Christmas occupancy and bookings outlook as the industry readies for the peak winter 2020 season.

Ketera Rolle, acting general manager for the Holiday Inn Express, told Tribune Business: “Things are pretty good. I just had a look at it this morning. We are right where we need to be; almost to the point of being sold out as of Tuesday of next week into January 1.”

She added that forward bookings for January are looking “pretty good”, and said: “We have some good on-the-books numbers right now, but we could be better. We are just focusing our numbers on ending the year. So early next week we will have a look at our on-the-books for January, and then we will try to see what we can do to build on that. But, right now, on-the-books looks steady.”

When asked how the Christmas compares to prior year comparatives, Ms Rolle added: “Well, it was kind of sporadic last year in terms of we picked up most of our bookings over this period last minute. When I say last minute, we were basically relying on walk-ins and that was due to some system issues that we had.

“So most of what we had on the books had fallen off, and we were just relying on basic walk-ins and last-minute bookings, as opposed to this year where we actually had everything on the books from September. So it is basically managing and retaining what we had on our books.”

However, Benjamin Davis, general manager for the Warwick Hotel, told Tribune Business that the outlook was “pretty poor. I don’t have any idea when it will pick up. But it is nothing fantastic, nothing compared to 2018”.

Asked whether Hurricane Dorian-related fall-out may be a factor behind the weak performance, he replied: “A bit of both. You have to remember that the hotels in the southern Caribbean, like in St Marteen and Puerto Rico, and these other countries that had a bad hurricane two years ago, they have a lot of rooms back in inventory so travellers have a lot of options.”

Mr Davis added: “We’re not expecting anything glorious for January or February either, but we have to wait and see. We are seeing moderate pick up; forward bookings are picking up slowly.”

The Ministry of Tourism previously said it will be “more aggressive” in countering the “high single digit softness” in 2020 first quarter bookings after it received a $500,000 boost to its marketing war chest.

Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, told Tribune Business earlier this month that he had approved a reallocation of funding from within the ministry’s 2019-2020 budget to intensify promotional efforts designed to counter negative publicity related to Hurricane Dorian.

Predicting that peak winter tourism stopover numbers will be “flat, if not a little down” against strong comparisons from 2019, Mr D’Aguilar said the fall-off in the highest-spending category had been partially offset by the rapid rebound in cruise passengers.

For last year, Mr D’Aguilar said the Bahamas experienced record-breaking arrival numbers with 6.6m tourists visiting the country in 2018, an increase of 7.9 percent compared to the 2017 numbers.