The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Two major Abaco resorts say they are ready for the country's November 1 tourism re-opening after completing post-Hurricane Dorian repairs.

Brent Ingraham, the Abaco Beach Resort and Marina's director of sales and marketing, told the Abaco Business Outlook webinar: “The Abaco Beach Resort, over the past 12 months, has undertaken an expensive renovation of the entire resort.

"We have renovated and refurbished all of our guest rooms; we have added two new restaurant concepts; we have built a new lobby and a new porte cochere and welcome lounge; we have renovated our meeting space. We have rebuilt the entire marina - the marina was destroyed - and we have expanded the fuelling station.

"We have rebuilt and expanded the beach, we have expanded guest activities and, of course, guest amenities throughout the resort. I think most, and more importantly, during the entire renovation process we remained operational. Ownership felt it important to retain 100 percent of the management team during that entire operation," Mr Ingraham continued.

"We’re open. We’re looking forward to a number of tourists for the official opening of the country, and we have continued to receive guest reservations to the resort. We’re looking forward to the grand opening on November 1."

Shane Krige, the Abaco Club on Winding Bay's general manager, added: “We’ve been very blessed that the club did not sustain a lot of damage from Hurricane Dorian. In fact, the club was operating from October after the storm. In that respect we have been blessed, but we still have been putting the property together and our private club set up.

"We’ve also been very fortunate that we haven’t really closed in terms of having members on property as a safe haven during COVID-19. We had probably 40 to 50 members on property. So the residential model has been working very well for us. Our developer, Southworth, is the owner and the operator of the property, and has been incredibly graceful with all of the investments that need to be done and, in particular, taking care of our employees.

"We even erected a village called, affectionately, Abaco City, so we’ve been able to retain all of our employees. Another big component for us is our harbour, our Yacht Club, which is located in Little Harbour. Overall we’ve been doing very well, and there is plenty of work to do. We're just very blessed that we have been able to employ a lot of our existing team.”