The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Harbour Island hoteliers say the post-Dorian “hangover” is a greater concern than the Christmas power blackout, with one resort voicing optimism it can “make up” a 16 percent January booking gap.

Dean Spychalla, general director for Valentine’s Resort and Marina, told Tribune Business that the 72-hour Christmas outage was “certainly a black eye” for Briland especially given recent Ministry of Tourism and private sector efforts to promote this nation as “open for business” following the category five storm.

Anticipating that some negative tourist reviews may eventually emerge on Trip Advisor as a result of Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) woes, Mr Spychalla nevertheless said the continued fall-out from Hurricane Dorian remained a bigger long-term issue than the blackout which he predicted will “blow over pretty quickly”.

Valentine’s was spared the worst by its two 600 kilowatt (KW) generators, one which powers the hotel when BPL is out, and the other, the marina. Mr Spychalla revealed that the marina generator was only installed this November, and said: “Thank goodness for that.”

He added that the resort was also in no danger of running short of fuel for the generators thanks to the diesel storage tanks it uses for sales to visiting boaters. “We decided not to sell fuel to the boats to save fuel for the generators,” Mr Spychalla explained.

“We weren’t in danger of running out of fuel, but that’s certainly not something we want to have to do. Between them, the two generators use 50 gallons per hour. Running for 24 hours over three days, you do the math. The cost of running those generators was very significant. That’s how it impacted me.”

Expressing sorrow for the impact the outage had on Brilanders without generators, Mr Spychalla told Tribune Business: “We’ve worked so hard to try to mitigate the damage from Dorian and get people to come back to The Bahamas. Our slogan, from the Ministry of Tourism, is that we’re open for business and pleasure.

“It’s a black eye for Harbour Island certainly. I haven’t seen any Trip Advisor reviews yet but there will be some. It couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’ll get where we need to go eventually. Nobody’s going to throw in the towel. We still expect we’ll have a good season in the long-run but it’s unfortunate.

“I think the longer term concern we have now is still Hurricane Dorian hangover. I do believe that’s had a negative impact on The Bahamas. The Harbour Island power situation, that will blow over pretty quickly.”

Mr Spychalla said Valentine’s had enjoyed 100 percent occupancies for the past fortnight, but December was down by more than 8 percent overall. “We’re down 16 percent in pacing for January, a little less for February, but we have time so hopefully we will make that up,” he added.

Tracy Barry, proprietress of The Landing, told Tribune Business: “The fact that we had no ‘public service announcement’, no official word from anyone one during this 48 hour ordeal - not central government, not local government, not BPL, was insulting.

“We were asked to provided a service in peak season to a very high-end clientele with our hands tied behind our backs and blindfolded... While personally our guests were not directly affected during their stay with us in the 48 hours without electricity, as both of our high-powered (and exceptionally expensive) generators operated without incident during that time, that does not make us complacent.

“This was outrageous. To have nothing officially said until a piece appeared in The Tribune today after power had been restored was crazy. This is sadly typical of how we are treated on Harbour Island. We make everyone (The Bahamas) look good with the product that we produce under unbelievably difficult circumstances, and do not even get the minimal respect from the government to enable us to continue to do what we do.”

George Cross, of Valentine’s Dive Centre, added: “Some of our customers were upset and will likely not return. There was no real ‘heads up’ on a solution/timing of this power failure.

“I lost a veteran captain who was hired to help fix the power cable cut by the barge between Eleuthera and Spanish Wells. We could not fill scuba tanks and lost business, and when it was finally restored the voltage at the Valentine’s resort compressor room was too low... so we cancelled all diving till further notice.”

Another Briland resort operator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the industry had to move beyond the blackout and focus on this New Year’s week and working with the necessary stakeholders to solve Harbour Island’s long-standing power woes once and for all.