The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net

WITH the reopening of the tourism industry due on Sunday, one boutique property says bookings have been slow.

Manager of Orange Hill Beach Inn on West Bay Street Dannielle Cole said even though it looks grim at the moment, she is hopeful that it will get better.

“As it stands now, we haven’t seen a huge uptick in bookings yet,” Ms Cole said as she looked at the month of November. “We’ve pretty much throughout this whole process of summer had a lot of bookings, then cancellations and re-bookings and then re-cancellations. So we have no big bookings right now for the November first (opening).

“We are hopeful, but I think that everyone is a little leery to travel knowing that things can change at a moment’s notice. I would hope that through November and onward we would start to see a steady rise with people coming back. It’s been difficult! Needless to say we have had a very minimal number of tourists before the restrictions. We were having quite a bit of local business. “We were choosing as a hotel to operate minimally, accepting all the bookings that we could have.”

Meanwhile, a local tour operator is also doubtful the November 1 opening will bring much business.

Lamont Rahming, proprietor of Economy Bus Line and Charter Services, said it appears the industry is just “dangling in the wind” with no real confidence from stakeholders that a direction is being mapped out.

He said he has had “zero” bookings or contacts for the November opening.

“So far there has been zero contact from any client or industry partners who I subcontract with sometimes,” said Mr Rahming. “There is one company in particular that we do a lot of work with from the cruise port and that’s not happening any time soon so we have heard nothing from that end. Our online site has not been getting any hits or bookings for anyone coming in from the airport.

“I think a big part of it, maybe, is due to the fact that the Ministry of Tourism says this is our target date and this is what we want to do, but we aren’t really hearing anything from the hotels, per se, as to we will be up and running on November 1.

“I’m very interested in hearing what the Prime Minister has to say. We don’t get much of a map, all we keep hearing is that the whole world is going through this and it’s just like we are blowing in the wind. There is no real sense of direction or plan. There seems to be an overall sense that nobody has any true confidence that there is truly a plan being executed here.”

Mr Rahming said it has not been easy coping with the business impact of COVID-19.

“It has been very trying and very difficult, but this too shall pass. Honestly, we have been using whatever savings we had, but that is even dwindling. You know what happens when there is nothing coming in. Some of our staff have been able to take advantage of the NIB government assistance programme.

“Now I would say we have not come to a complete stop because we have one or two agreements to provide transportation for essential services. So we still see some income but it’s nowhere near what it used to. Whatever monies we have, we just have to maximise it.”

Mr Rahming said the fact that stakeholders are not hearing anything from the properties themselves, could be a big factor in not seeing any bookings.