The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

ATLANTIS' occupancy levels were up by 6 per cent year-over-year "across the board" for the 2012 first quarter, Tribune Business was told yesterday, with the summer months set to be the recovery "proof in the pudding".

George Markantonis, Kerzner International (Bahamas) president and managing director, said that despite a "very strong" three months to end-March 2012, the Atlantis and One & Only Ocean Club operator wanted to see what the June-August period looked like before truly determining whether a sustained rebound was underway.

Explaining that these were the months when families typically travelled, due to the school holidays, thus giving Kerzner International an opportunity to assess traveller spending patterns and attitudes, Mr Markantonis said Paradise Island - and, by extension, the wider tourism industry - "still had a ways to go" to match early 2008 business levels.

"The first quarter was very strong, and April is turning out very strongly but, in the end, the proof will be in the pudding of what summer looks like," he told Tribune Business. "We need a very strong June, July and August to see the impact of the recovery."

Noting that Kerzner International was "watching airline prices very carefully", given that these were key factors when it came to access costs and stopover visitor spending levels, Mr Markantonis said business was "generally up across the board" in the 2012 first quarter.

"In general, our occupancies were considerably up over last year's first quarter, and for us the good news was that the rates were about flat," Mr Markantonis told Tribune Business.

"Our occupancies were considerably up by 6 occupancy percentage points. That's very, very strong for a quarter. It was very promising, and we're waiting optimistically to see what summer will bring."

However, he warned that Atlantis still had work to do to get back to the business levels it was enjoying prior to the September 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse and onset of a fully-fledged global recession.

"I don't think we're quite there yet. We've got quite a ways to go. 2008 was generally a strong year through August," Mr Markantonis warned.