The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

PRESIDENT and managing director of Kerzner International George Markantonis said despite a 10 per cent decline in summer bookings, he his optimistic things will pick up for fall and winter.

Speaking on "The Morning Boil" on Island 102.9FM, Mr Markantonis said a Jet Blue promotion along with a recent partnership with the Ministry of Tourism is expected to boast bookings for the resort.

"We have a promotion going with Jet Blue that gives people the potential to win a series of things including a stay at the resort we are doing a series of things including email blasts. We just sent one out to five million True Blue rewards participants all living in the northeast," he said.

"We also have commercials that we run on every Jet Blue flight and we also have a monster display in the airport at Terminal five in New York. We have already had thousands of people visit the website. On day over 3,500 people called or used the dedicated email. We are just waiting to see how many actual bookings we get."

Mr Markantonis said the first five months of the year were good, but things went a bit down after that.

"We are going to wait and see. Summer here has been a little bit rocky but it has been picking up over the past few days considerably. We are really gearing up for fall.

"In fact the Ministry of Tourism along with the promotions board have kindly come to the table and we have got this great air credit programme that will kick in August 10 and go straight until December 26 with no black-out dates. We offer people who book the opportunity to get an air credit which is subsidised by government and by the promotion board."

Mr Markantonis said despite the slight slippage in hotel bookings, he thinks it is going to be a strong year. He added that it is still "too early to make a call on summer."