The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Club Med's general manager yesterday revealed that more than 75 percent of the resort's staff have returned to work at the property despite its near three-year shutdown due to COVID-19.

Adeline Vitry, the Columbus Isle hotel's general manager, told the Cat Island Business Outlook conference that since its late October 2022 re-opening the resort has been generating occupancy levels of between 80 to 95 percent.

She revealed that high guest volumes have been achieved despite ongoing renovations and upgrades, which typically see around eight rooms taken out of its 230-strong inventory at a time, because Club Med had prioritised re-opening before remodelling. Had it not done so, Ms Vitry hinted there was a real possibility that Columbus Isle would "maybe not have re-opened".

As it is, the property is now employing 250 persons directly and indirectly, she added, with the parents of up to 80 percent of San Salvador's schoolchildren working at Club Med. Ms Vitry said it can accommodate up to 500 guests at any one time, and is receiving three charter flights per flights per week - one from each of Miami, France and Canada.

"We are now re-open and super-happy that 75 percent of our previous employee came back," she said. "Since the re-opening, we've been at between 80 to 95 percent capacity occupancy. We will have a full resort for July and August because we will have a lot of friends and family.

"We wanted to re-open without any time to refurbish and rebuild because if we did not re-open at this time we would maybe not have re-opened at all." Ms Vitry said Club Med is renovating its rooms "step by step" to avoid impacting the guest experience and inconveniencing staff.

Club Med, she added, spends around $17m per year on local purchases including food and beverage, taxes, utilities and staff payroll. And it also spends more than $15m to have its charters fly into San Salvador.

Prime Minister Philip Davis KC, who is MP for Cat Island, Rum Cay and San Salvador, said at the time of October's re-opening that the Government had sought to match the $5m invested by Club Med put $5m in the resort’s re-opening by spending $3.5m to upgrade infrastructure such as public health clinics, water resources, the airport and electricity supply.

“The impact of the reopening of Club Med to the economy of San Salvador cannot be overstated,” said Mr Davis. “It will see those who left for work in Nassau and other places return to continue to build their home. We expect to see at least 350 jobs generated on the island as a result of this. And it represents opportunities for other Bahamians.

“One of the reasons the property remained closed for so long is because the infrastructure had been neglected over the course of several years. My administration made a commitment to ensure that would not remain an obstacle to the continued growth of San Salvador. It’s a commitment that we meant to keep.”