The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

BAHA Mar reopened yesterday with 1,800 employees, 240 guest arrivals and the promise that business will increase significantly through the holiday season and into next year.

Graeme Davis, the president of the resort, said officials and staff are excited to be back.

“I reflect back to when we opened in April of 2017 with the Grand Hyatt opening up, and here we are again today, hopefully our last reopening of the project,” he said. “Grand Hyatt opens today with 1,800 rooms and our associates are thrilled to be back to work. A tremendous amount of work has been going into this.”

Baha Mar closed on March 25 because of the COVID-19 crisis and committed to providing “ex-gratia payments, partial salaries, medical benefits and severance pay” to its staff, going “beyond what any other business has done in The Bahamas,” Mr Davis said.

This effort has caused conflict between the resort and the National Insurance Board.

Mr Davis said NIB recently provided unemployment benefits to its staff but only after deducting Baha Mar’s ex-gratia payments from the total.

“I do know that the National Insurance Board and Ministry of Finance have made the payments to us for the difference between what we’re paying and what the minimum amount of $100 per employee is,” he said. “That is for us not the outcome that we would’ve expected. We are still waiting for the prime minister to look into the matter and give the employees the $100 that the government committed to in addition to the ex-gratia payments that we are making, not deducting ex-gratia payments and making up the difference. We hope that the prime minister will act and support the associates in giving them their $100 per week that was committed to and treat our employees fairly and consistently with other employers that are not giving any ex-gratia payments.”

Dorio Butler, 30, said it felt good to be back to work after nearly nine months off.

His challenge away from work was “just trying to keep a steady head and just being hopeful that we would be able to come back here again,” he said.

A Baha Mar employee for five years, he said he has two children, adding: “It was a strain for me, but I kept it together.”

Mr Butler said he last received unemployment benefits from NIB in October and concluded that he is owed about $1,000.

“Honestly, to come at the last minute and (they) say unfortunately you won’t be able to get those funds because Baha Mar is already paying us is really unfair to me,” he said.

Mr Davis said to date more than $70 million has been paid to Baha Mar employees.

Asked about the costs associated with maintaining a resort that is not operating, he declined to discuss specifics but said: “We’ve had significant losses in 2020…Just for electricity and utilities on an annualised basis it’s over $30 million per year when we’re opened so it’s a significant cost structure for Baha Mar.”

Mr Davis said demand will dictate when Baha Mar opens its other hotels.

“We feel it’s very important to have Baha Mar open and do it safely for our guests and certainly for our associates and community, but it is important to open in order to build that consumer confidence for the future demand that will be coming here to The Bahamas,” he said.

“We’re starting slow. We feel confident that as the vaccine rolls out and we see the COVID surge start to decline in our key feeder market in the United States, that should increase some demand here to The Bahamas and that would be indicators for us to start the additional phases of opening, which would be our Rosewood, SLS, and Melia. We’ve not made that decision yet. We’ll take another look after the new year and we will continue to monitor but it will be based on demand and ensuring that we can operate Baha Mar in a safe fashion.”

In preparation for yesterday’s reopening, Mr Davis said Baha Mar conducted 7,000 COVID-19 tests involving “associates, vendors and contractors.”

As part of a partnership with Doctors Hospital, guests will be tested on arrival to the resort with the rapid antigen test and will be isolated in their rooms for 30 minutes while awaiting their results.

“Then they will be given their room keys and be allowed to enjoy the facility,” Mr Davis said. “I’m really pleased to say that we have many guests that are staying beyond the week with us. We feel quite confident that we’ve created a safe environment for our associates, for our guests, and that certainly helps out the entire community.”

Guests who test positive for COVID-19 have several options.

“As they have entered from the US,” Mr Davis said, “they have purchased the health insurance through the Bahamas health visa application. One option, if they have comorbidity issues, they have the option to be medivaced back to their home city through the health insurance plan. In addition, the health insurance plan covers them to quarantine in place for 14 days and that’s another option for our guests that do test positive.

“We have in the Grand Hyatt some excellent suites with kitchens. We would provide them supplies, food, and they would be isolated in that suite for the 14 days and we would obviously have Doctors Hospital and the Ministry of Health follow up as we would on a daily basis to ensure that they are doing fine and then at the end of 14 days they would go through additional testing to be released.”