The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

HOTELS throughout The Bahamas yesterday said they are enjoying a record-breaking 2023 to-date with high occupancy levels recorded over the Easter period.

Chad Hinsey, of Small Hope Bay Lodge in Andros, said the resort has been running at full occupancy since January. “We had a pretty crazy start and we’ve been having a great year all year basically,” he said. “It’s very rare, but we’ve been having a record-breaking year so far. We’ve been running at almost full occupancy since January. It has slowed down here and there but it’s overall been pretty good.”

Jamal Glover, general manager of Bayview Suites, and treasurer for the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), said the Paradise Island resort has enjoyed a robust winter tourism season with business volumes approaching pre-COVID levels.

He said: “We’ve had similar results as everybody - just a robust Easter and Spring Break season. We’re very close to pre-pandemic levels, so it was a very busy two months or six weeks. I’m assuming that the operations people at LPIA (Lynden Pindling International Airport will say the same thing; that the traffic over the last six weeks has been remarkably high. The traffic we had for the last six weeks, you know, we can’t complain.”

Mr Glover said he was optimistic that current tourism trends will continue provided the US economy remains strong. He added: “Hopefully the United States doesn’t have a recession or some crazy thing that hinders our progress. We’ve been trying to get back to these levels for the last two years, so hopefully the United States remains relatively buoyant in their economy.”

Teynarae Newbold, general manager of The Rock House Hotel and Restaurant on Harbour Island, said high occupancy levels had exceeded Spring projections. She said: “I mean, for us, occupancy has been about 80 to 90 percent for the Easter weekend. So that is a little bit more than we were expecting, but we were happy for it.

“Truthfully, I can’t really compare it only because this was a different company pre-pandemic and we re-opened it after the pandemic. So, this group has only been in business for the past two years, so we don’t really have the pre-pandemic numbers because we weren’t here.”