The Tribune

* Says ‘no higher than 40%’ of members recalled

* Voices fears for ‘main thread’ of local economy

* ‘Hundreds still home’ after 17 COVID months

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The hotel union’s president yesterday said industry workers were yet to feel the benefits from tourism’s post-COVID resurgence with “no higher than 40 percent” of his members recalled to work to-date.

Darrin Woods, the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union’s (BHCAWU) chief, told Tribune Business that “a lot of people are still at home” while branding the number of staff recalled to resort properties where the union is represented as “sluggish”.

Voicing hope that tourism’s recovery will maintain its present pace through the traditionally slow months of September and October, so that recalled hotel workers will earn sufficient income to carry them through to Christmas 2021, he added that those still on furlough are increasingly struggling to make ends meet almost 17 months into the pandemic.

Describing tourism employees, and not just hotel workers, as “the main thread” that ties the Bahamian economy together, Mr Woods warned that a failure to get the likes of jet ski operators, straw vendors and hair braiders back to full work soon could result in many ‘Mom and Pop’ style businesses failing to survive.

Still, he argued that The Bahamas’ relatively low COVID-19 inoculation rate and vaccine hesitancy will not deter travellers from visiting The Bahamas, while local resorts will be unable to cater to pre-pandemic tourist numbers with less workers because this will compromise service quality.

Mr Woods was yesterday backed by Dave Beckford, a former hotel union presidency contender and ex-Atlantis employee, who told this newspaper yesterday that he knows of “hundreds of hotel workers are still furloughed at home”.

He argued that this made little sense given that Atlantis had recently disclosed it was operating at close to 90 percent occupancies, the still-closed Beach Towers excepted, and added that former colleagues still on furlough were increasingly taking the position that the Paradise Island mega resort needed to either recall them or make them redundant.

“Particularly for the properties where we are represented, the numbers are still sluggish in terms of people returning to work,” Mr Woods told Tribune Business. “If you look at the British Colonial Hilton downtown, there’s kind of an uptick because of the cruise line home porting but it’s nothing significant.

“We’re seeing more areas open but on a smaller scale.... a Friday, Saturday, Sunday type thing. Everywhere else seems to be the same. We wonder where all these visitors are actually staying if they are coming? Is it in a hotel, a guest house, Airbnb or with family because we’re not seeing the employment.

“We’re trying our best to get them back to work, but the number of those recalled is not higher than 40 percent. A lot of people are still at home. Something we’d been advocating for from the outset was to bring back as many people as the hotels can on reduced days, but the properties have taken the position there were a bunch of people they wanted to work with and gave them maximum days.”

The duo’s remarks raises questions as to whether there is a disconnect between the rebound in stopover visitor numbers, as cited by Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, and the resort industry itself and the pace at which hotel and tourism staff are being recalled to work.

Mr D’Aguilar last week said he was targeting one million stopover visitors for the 2021 full-year, along with the goal of returning the tourism industry to 80 percent of pre-COVID capacity by the 2022 first quarter. Foreign visitors, based on the purchase of 131,000 health travel visas in June, were 30 percent below the 187,029 that visited The Bahamas in the same month during June 2019.

And, while Atlantis and Baha Mar terminated 700 and 1,100 staff, respectively, due to COVID-19’s devastating economic impact, both have indicated that current visitor booking pace is outstripping 2019. Baha Mar, which is non-unionised, recently said all 3,500-plus workers have now been recalled and not a single one is on furlough after running occupancies of over 75 percent during US Independence.

Atlantis, for its part, has recalled similar worker numbers and revealed in late June that it will operate at “close to 90 percent occupancy” over the next few weeks. Resort industry employment, meanwhile, has also been impacted by the continued closure of resort properties such as Sandals Royal Bahamian and Melia Nassau Beach, although the former is due to re-open in early 2022.

Mr Woods, meanwhile, said the union was now working to ensure that hotels are “fairly” rotating work days between members who have been recalled as it waits for the industry to completely re-open.

Expressing hope that there is sufficient pent-up travel demand to enable The Bahamas to avoid the traditionally slower months of September and October this year, the hotel union president said those remaining on furlough could soon be confronted with the end of unemployment benefits come September 2021 if the Government does not renew its COVID-19 Emergency Powers Order.

“We’re hoping and praying it will be opened up sufficiently so that the remaining people are able to go back to work,” Mr Woods told Tribune Business. “We want to see a build-up on what the resorts have. If they get to 50-60 percent recalled that will be good, and if we get to 75 percent we will definitely have the majority of people recalled as opposed to the majority of people at home.

“It is very concerning. Again, if you look at the hospitality industry as a whole - and I am not just talking hotel workers, I’m talking hair braiders and jet ski operators - they’re the main thread that goes through this economy, touching everything.

“If this main thread is cut off, things will fall apart. You’ll see the closure of smaller entities - not the conglomerates, as they have more resources to tap into - but the corner convenience store will not be able to hold on much longer without that thread running through it.”

Suggesting that Americans will continue to travel to The Bahamas regardless of whether this country has achieved mass vaccination or not, Mr Woods said the resort industry would be unable to operate with lower staffing levels - effectively ‘do more with less’ - once tourist numbers return to pre-pandemic levels.

“If you have ‘x’ visitors then you need ‘x’ people to service them,” he explained. “If you operate with less people you will have guest complaints because you are not able to service them in a timely manner. When the numbers become overwhelming you will have no choice but to bring people back to work or suffer the consequences of guests complaining.”

Mr Beckford meanwhile, recalling former Atlantis colleagues who have either been terminated or furloughed, said: “If Atlantis is running occupancies at 90 percent, why not bring all your workers back? There are still hundreds of furloughed hotel workers at home. I could see that if your occupancies are not good, but if you are running at 90 percent why do you have so many still furloughed?

“More should be called back. Many are calling me and saying ‘Atlantis needs to call me back or make me redundant’. If business is not good I can understand that, but if you’re running at 90 percent occupancies why are these workers still home? They don’t have any income. I don’t understand the logic behind it. I don’t get it.”