By NEIL HARTNELL
Tribune Business Editor
nhartnell@tribunemedia.net
A hotelier yesterday said “it’s about time” that the “diamond in the rough” which is Grand Bahama gets polished as he warned that fixing the island’s airport will not be a cure-all for its multiple challenges.
Magnus Alnebeck, Pelican Bay’s general manager, told Tribune Business that many Freeport residents and those in the wider island were tired of constantly hearing Grand Bahama being spoken of as having “great potential” and want to see this transformed into reality.
Speaking as the Government hopes to unveil a winning bidder for Grand Bahama International Airport soon, he described the island as akin to “a three-leg stool” where the gateway, airlift and tourism product all need to be in place to thrive.
Suggesting that two will not be enough without the ‘third leg’, Mr Alnebeck said a world-class airlift by itself would not be a difference maker. He pointed as an example to Exuma, which “definitely does not have the Caribbean’s best airport, but was attracting strong visitor numbers and airlift based on the tourism product offered to guests.
Noting that it is close to six-and-a-half years since the Grand Lucayan “really functioned” following Memories post-Hurricane Matthew pull-out, he added that the resort’s sale and re-opening under new ownership was critical for Grand Bahama to “have something to come to the table with” and re-establish itself in the tourism marketplace.
“It’s very quiet on Grand Bahama, that’s for sure. Let’s see if something happens,” Mr Alnebeck told this newspaper. “There is work at the airport, and the domestic terminal opened up for Sunwing, so there are little things happening. The reality is that we don’t have much airlift in the first place, but the Government is trying to put little things in place and the promise something big is going to happen.
“Hopefully that happens at the same time as the Grand Lucayan gets sold. Having a nice airport is important, but by itself is not going to bring more people here. We need to have the airlift, and the airlift is only generated if we have more product that is appealing and encourages people to come here.
“It’s like a stool with three legs, with airport, airlift and product that drives demand. If we think a new airport is going to be the only solution to the problem that is not the case. One could even argue that if you were to look at the airport in Georgetown, it’s definitely not one of the best airports in the region, but it has a lot of airlift. Why? Because they have a product that drives demand.”
The Grand Lucayan’s sale and Grand Bahama International Airport redevelopment are seen by many observers as going hand-in-hand because the resort needs the latter to facilitate airlift, while the airport needs the hotel to drive demand and passenger numbers.
Describing Grand Bahama’s plight in recent years as “very frustrating”, and only made worse by Hurricane Dorian and COVID-19, Mr Alnebeck said it was very easy for residents and businesses to become “disillusioned” by the multiple announcements and agreement signings that ultimately failed to translate into jobs and economic development.
“There’s definitely a feeling of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll believe it when we see it’,” he added of the reaction to proposed investments. “It’s more than six years, six-and-a-half years almost, since the Grand Lucayan was really functioning because of Hurricane Matthew and when Memories left.
“There’s a substantial amount of rebuilding that has to be done, both physical and promotional. We haven’t really been in the marketplace for six years. Although we’ve made a lot of little efforts to maintain a presence, we won’t have something to come to the table with, which in my mind needs to be the re-opening of the Grand Lucayan, to bring us back to the market. Once something happens with the Grand Lucayan, and we get the airport a bit more operational, at least we’ll be on the way.”
Mr Alnebeck said he was still receiving reports of investor interest in Freeport, but added that this must be translated into actual projects. “There are a lot of people sniffing around and there’s a lot of interest,” he told this newspaper. “I don’t know how many. We hear the island has great potential, that it is a diamond in the rough, but it’s about time someone gets that diamond in the rough and does something with it.”
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