The Tribune

• Royal Caribbean using Coco Cay formula on numbers

• Executive: Activists back Toby Smith and higher visitors

• Cruise line conducts studies on Atlantis noise concern

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A senior Royal Caribbean executive yesterday argued that fears guest density at its $110m project will “decimate” western Paradise Island “are not necessarily rooted in consistency”.

Jay Schneider, the cruise giant’s chief product and innovation officer, told Tribune Business that environmental activists were complaining about the number of passengers the Royal Beach Club will accommodate yet supporting the much higher per acre number that Bahamian entrepreneur, Toby Smith, is allegedly targeting for his neighbouring venture.

Responding to concerns that the Colonial Beach area will be unable to handle several thousand Royal Beach Club guests per day, he said: “We expect that if we take the annual participation throughout the year, and divide it by 365 days, the range of participation and persons from that is somewhere between 2,500 and 2,750 guests per day.”

Mr Schneider said these numbers remain estimates, given that Royal Caribbean will not know how well its Paradise Island destination “will sell” to passengers until it opens in 2025. The cruise line will also have days when it only has one vessel in port, thereby reducing Royal Beach Club guest numbers below the average.

“We expect that, at maximum capacity, it could be up to 3,000,” the Royal Caribbean innovation chief added. “It’s going to average out over the year to 2,500 to 2,750 per day based on the economic model we’ve put together. We spreading that 2,750 out over 17 acres.”

Comparing this to Mr Smith’s Paradise Island Lighthouse and Beach Club project, which Royal Caribbean was battling with for the same two-acre Crown Land parcel until it deliberately reduced its footprint to end the conflict, Mr Schneider suggested the Royal Beach Club’s guest density would be far less than its potential western Paradise Island neighbour.

Noting that Joe Darville, the Save the Bays and Waterkeepers Bahamas chief, in particular, was “a huge supporter” of Mr Smith’s project but one of Royal Caribbean’s leading critics, he added: “When I had met with Toby 1,000 [persons] per day was his goal. He [Mr Darville] was very supportive of 1,000 on three acres, but not 3,000 over 17 acres. We appreciate the concerns, but they’re not necessarily rooted in consistency.”

Mr Darville and other activists, in a statement issued earlier this week, had reiterated fears that Royal Caribbean’s $100m beach club project will cause “total decimation” of western Paradise Island despite assurances to the contrary. The activists, in a joint statement responding to the cruise giant’s multiple environmental stewardship pledges, argued that the Royal Beach Club’s 17-acre site “cannot survive intact” with a daily average visitor count of some 2,750.

“We continue to believe that the site cannot survive intact and faces full transformation, and total decimation, of its physical assets,” the group alleged. “The precedent for grossly exceeding a small area’s carrying capacity is as per the permanent and irreversible impact Royal Caribbean had on the Bahamian island Little Stirrup Cay, whose Bahamian name couldn’t even survive the undue pressure to transform to Coco Cay.”

They also recalled the concerns voiced individually by Mr Darville, who argued that the location, which includes four acres of Crown Land, “is ill-suited and incapable of absorbing the impact of the estimated 3,000 visitors that Royal Caribbean plans to descend on the site daily”. Mr Smith, too, is likely to dispute the assertion that his project is seeking to receive 1,000 visitors per day as it seeks to obtain the necessary approvals - including a five-acre Crown Land lease.

Mr Schneider, though, disclosed that Royal Caribbean is employing the same formula to determine guest capacity on Paradise Island as it uses at Coco Cay, its Berry Island private island and top destination according to passenger reviews, to ensure the facility is not overcrowded.

The 40-acre Coco Can can accommodate up to 10,000 passengers at any one time, and he added: “One of the things we’re very careful about to maintain a level of exclusivity for our guests is the level of space they have. We don’t want them to feel like they’re on top of each other.”

Using a day when three Royal Caribbean ships are docked in Nassau, with an Oasis-class, Freedom-class and Celebrity-class vessel bringing a combined 13,000 visitors to the Bahamian capital, Mr Schneider said the Royal Beach Club’s self-imposed capacity limit would mean at least 10,000 of those passengers will be seeking out other activities with Bahamian-owned businesses.

“More than 60 percent of guests on average throughout the year will not go to Paradise Island,” he reiterated to this newspaper. “We are only going to have anywhere from 2,750 to 3,000 guests go to the Beach Club. Could we squeeze more on? Yes, we could, but there must be a viable density per square metre of persons.”

Mr Schneider also told Tribune Business that Royal Caribbean has gone beyond what it is required to do by the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, and under Bahamian law and regulations, to address specific concerns raised by Atlantis over potential noise pollution from its Paradise Island project.

In response to fears by the Paradise Island mega resort that DJs, music and associated noise from the pool at the Beach Club’s heart “could be disruptive to guests in their beach chairs relaxing and enjoying a quiet day”, Royal Caribbean has “taken the question seriously” and used its Coco Cay private island as a basis to determine if these concerns are valid.

Noting that music from the DJ at Coco Cay’s Oasis Pool cannot be heard at the island’s cruise ship pier, and that the distance between those two points is less than that separating the proposed Royal Beach Club from Atlantis and the latter’s beach, Mr Schneider said: “We believe, based on the original study, whether it’s a Junkanoo band or DJ in the pool at the Beach Club, no one in their beach chair at Atlantis will hear that.” The issue, though, faces more in-depth study.

The Royal Caribbean executive said the cruise line will likely “start pursuing” a bidding process for the award of Royal Beach Club’s construction work in late 2023 or early 2024, but only once the Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) and necessary construction permits have been obtained.

The process will “start with local construction companies”, with the build-out phase likely to create “hundreds” of jobs. Mr Schneider, though, said construction will be made more difficult than for other projects because the western Paradise Island site has no road access. This means construction debris and other material will have to be barged to and from the site across Nassau harbour.

“The site is not accessible by road,” he said. “One of the things we have to be thoughtful of is how that construction process looks like. A lot of that material has to come out, and that has to be treated very carefully. It’s going to be heavier construction for someone than elsewhere. There’s more challenges than elsewhere because we don’t have the land-based access.”