The Tribune

By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT

tsmith-cartwrighttribunemedia.net

WITH tourists now flocking to the country’s shores in record post-pandemic numbers, President of Baha Mar Graeme Davis says the resort has already exceeded its 2019 occupancy levels.

Speaking to the press at the opening of the resort’s water theme park, Baha Bay, Mr Davis attributes “pent up demand”, among other things, for Baha Mar’s occupancy bounce back.

“We are very pleased to say that effective in the month of June, going forward for every month until the end of the year we are forecasting to exceed our 2019 occupancy level,” Mr Davis said.

“Certainly the ‘Travel with Confidence’ programme that we put into place earlier this year, our promotion that we are doing and certainly working with our brand teams, we’ve been very fortunate to now see the pent up demand really flourishing today.

“This will be our busiest weekend for all of 2021 – the July 4 weekend. We’re expecting July to again exceed our 2019 occupancies. Our group business is still not returning until late 2023 or 2024, but we are very optimistic about the rest of this year and certainly 2022 looks to be again a record year for us as well.”

Christmas is five months away and already Baha Mar can project record breaking occupancy levels. Mr Davis said the success of occupancy can be projected even into 2022.

“We are looking at the same time in 2019 right now, looking into that December festive period, and we are already ahead of pace compared to the 2019 festive Christmas season,” he said.

“So, yes, we are looking at that and we are seeing our guests already booking in advance to lock in their Christmas vacations and also into 2022.

“We are already starting to see, now that the new calendar is starting to come out for next year, we are already seeing bookings for 2022 as well. Particularly for our group business, that is also exceeding our expectations in prior years going into 2019 and into 2020.”

Baha Mar, along with other resorts around The Bahamas, had no choice but to furlough staff during lockdowns last year when COVID-19 ran rampant throughout the world and borders were closed. Mr Davis was happy to announce that staff furloughs are now a thing of the past for Baha Mar.

“Right now we (have) over 3,500 here on property,” he said. “We expect as we are opening up our markets that will add almost another 200 jobs. That’s opening up next week. So, as we continue to open up new venues or venues that we had closed down and as we open them up for the winter season we will start adding staff as well.

“We have no more associates on furlough. So all of our associates are back 100 percent.”

Baha Mar has a policy of staff and guests being vaccinated or presenting negative antigen tests to enter the property.

Mr Davis gave the press impressive numbers of staff who are either fully vaccinated or have received first doses.

“Not all of our associates are vaccinated. We certainly encourage all of our associates to be vaccinated,” Mr Davis continued. “We offer an incentive for our associates to be vaccinated. We actually had set up for the last two months vaccinations in the Baha Mar ballroom. Not just for associates but for the community to come to Baha Mar and get vaccinated.

“We had to stop that because of the lack of access to vaccines, but when the next batch comes in we will be reopening Baha Mar ballroom again to ensure vaccines are available not only for our associates but for the entire community.

“Right now we are close to 1,000 associates fully vaccinated. They don’t have to test to come to work anymore and they don’t have to do any temperature checks. We have well over 1,700 who have taken their first dose. So, we are certainly optimistic.”

Mr Davis encouraged everyone to be vaccinated in order to put The Bahamas back in a competitive place in the Caribbean.