The Tribune

By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Sandals executive chairman yesterday revealed it is building an extra 100 rooms to ease Exuma’s housing crisis for staff with the growth of vacation rentals “driving the cost of living through the roof”.

Adam Stewart, speaking to the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board’s annual meeting, said the transformation of the now-former Sandals Emerald Bay resort into the chain’s Beaches brand is “making steady progress”.

He added that the necessary engineering work has been completed and Sandals is now awaiting construction materials shipments to progress the redevelopment, with the resort chain building an extra 100 rooms for staff housing to help accommodate the estimated 800 workers who will be employed when the Beaches property opens.

“We are making steady progress. We are just at the stage of building momentum. All the engineering stuff has been done, all the heavy stuff in the back-end. The systems and back-end of hospitality, they are either shipping or on the way,” Mr Stewart said.

“One of the things that, in more ways than others, [needs] an overall residual improvement is the demand for staff housing. We employ about 350 today, and that is likely to increase to 800, so we are building out 100 rooms for staff housing for Exuma because there is some difficulty finding staff housing there. The water slide and the staff housing is in Florida ready to ship, so hopefully we will get them over in the next few weeks.”

Mr Stewart said the biggest challenge with operating a resort in Exuma is the lack of healthcare facilities when a guest has a medical emergency. He added that although air ambulances provide good service they take hours to deploy, which creates a problem when there is a guest or staff emergency.

“We have a duty of care to our customer,” the Sandals chief said. “Accidents happen, health scares happen. We have to take proper care of any 10,000, 11,000 customers a week, and things happen.

“I think not having the proper infrastructure in place to deal with medical emergencies... air ambulances are great, but they take hours to deploy and get there even in the best of executions, and I think healthcare is a real issue overall and it’s something that we have to strive as a community to do better with the Government to figure out.”

Mr Stewart added that Exuma businesses can also provide more dining options and activities for guests, adding that the information shared on Internet forums creates a free opportunity for companies that provide consistently good products and service.

“More dining options and more authenticity. I think we’re living in a time where it’s true that we say that people are looking for that, you know, the authenticity. So whether it’s conch salads or just that pop up tree food,” said Mr Stewart. “It’s also consistency of when they’re open. It’s amazing how much our loyal members speak online and the information that they share. I mean, they do the marketing for you.”

As for the renovations to Georgetown International Airport, Mr Stewart said they will be “critical” to expanding airlift to Exuma. “I know the airport is underway. The airport will be critical to getting more airlift as we go forward, and that experience overall, just being improved,” he added.

Mr Stewart encouraged Exuma residents and businesses to expand their offerings and create more opportunities for guests to enjoy their travels and increase visitor spend. When asked about his thoughts on short-term vacation rentals, he said they have given many more individuals an opportunity to enter the tourism market but have driven up the cost of living worldwide.

“It’s given many more people opportunities now and it’s also driven up the cost of living through the roof. Not just in Exuma, but worldwide. We had to build more staff housing just to find those accommodations for them to live,” said Mr Stewart.

He said that as a brand Sandals only builds hotels in destinations they “fundamentally believe in”, and the resort chain works to promote them across different segments of travellers. “We build resorts in destinations that we fundamentally believe in. We go to market and we just promote, promote any opportunity we get anywhere we can, get the brand to different segments in travel,” said Mr Stewart.

He said his biggest concern with short-term rentals is when they are unregulated and incidents happen to guests that tarnish the reputation of the host country. “My biggest concern with Airbnb is making sure that everything that happens is regulated, making sure that there aren’t things that happen that damage the destination at large in an unregulated industry,” said Mr Stewart.

“We have seen across different islands where things happen in Airbnb, because they’re uncontrolled, that then become news headlines that harm the destination at large.”

Mr Stewart said that although they create some challenges, short-term rentals drive traffic to destinations and have become a “proven segment” of travel. “At the same time Airbnb is very large and it has created a proven segment of travel. So it is not something that is negative, it’s just a reality that we have to contend with,” he added.