The Tribune

• Owner informs travel industry of move

• No resolution to hotel licence impasse

• Nation has ‘great future, hotel not in it’

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Compass Point’s owner has confirmed the iconic western New Providence resort will close on May 3, 2022, and that the travel industry has been informed amid his ongoing regulatory impasse with the government.

Leigh Rodney told Tribune Business that while The Bahamas “has a great future coming back from COVID-19, Compass Point won’t be in that” due to his inability to resolve grievances relating to the Hotel Licensing Authority and its inspection process.

“I just thought you’d be interested to know we’ve set a date. We picked May 3 as the closing date,” he said, announcing a decision that will leave 50-60 Bahamians unemployed if it takes effect some 11 months from now.

Mr Rodney, in Friday e-mails copied to this newspaper, told Majestic Tours: “We have chosen May 3, 2022, as the closure date for Compass Point. Do not accept reservations for stays starting on that date or later.”

Philip Lightbourn, an executive at Majestic Holidays, an arm of Majestic Tours, replied: “Such a shame that this has come so far without resolution. So sorry to hear this, it will be a sorely missed product both from a tourism perspective and a local hangout perspective. We will notify our partners of the new closure dates so they can adjust their stop sell records. Your heads-up is most appreciated.”

Speaking subsequently to this newspaper, Mr Rodney explained: “Majestic Tours is the booking agent for all our foreign and European travellers, and many book way into the future, so we had to let them know something is going on. We had a person that was set for late May [2022].

“There’s going to be an influx of travellers here this Christmas, it will be at 130 percent (sic) occupancy. You have a great future coming back from the virus, but Compass Point won’t be in that.”

Mr Rodney is thus making good on multiple prior warnings that he will close West Bay Street-based Compass Point by the time of the next general election unless he can meet with Dionisio D’Aguilar, minister of tourism and aviation, to discuss his concerns over the Hotel Licensing Authority and its associated inspections regime.

The Compass Point owner said “I just do not get why” the minister was reluctant “to sit down and discuss making some changes” to the hotel industry’s regulatory framework, adding: “Almost any reasonable person who sits there and listens, on the record, to what the Licensing Authority requires you to do, they’d say: ‘That makes no sense; we should get rid of it’.”

Mr Rodney said “for reasons not explained” Mr D’Aguilar had refused to engage with him and have the meeting he was requesting, although he did not divulge the precise nature of his concerns to this newspaper. 

Mr D’Aguilar declined to comment when contacted by Tribune Business yesterday. However, it is likely that his position has altered little from that stated on April 9, where he said he was “not moved” by Mr Rodney’s warnings of Compass Point’s closure unless he acts.

“I can’t get what specifically is his gripe with the government. What is it about the hotel licensing he does not like? What about the legislation that he is unhappy with? He wants to have a meeting with me and have the press present, and he wants to record the meeting. Obviously he wants to come to the meeting to embarrass the Government,” Mr D’Aguilar said two months’ ago.

“What he’s trying to do is bully and blackmail the Government into meeting him under his terms, under the threat that he is going to close the hotel and lay off all of the staff. I’m not moved. What does he want to meet with me to discuss?

“He has not told me what he finds so reprehensible about the Government that is causing him to want to shut down his operation and leave. I arranged a meeting between him and the chairman of the Hotel Licensing Board and he showed up with the press, so the chairman refused to meet with him under those conditions.”

Tribune Business understands that Mr Rodney was told to review the Hotels Act and accompanying regulations, detail his concerns and recommended changes in writing, and then discuss them with the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) and its members to obtain wider agreement and consensus on any reforms before bringing them to the Government.

This has yet to happen, which is being interpreted by the Government as a sign that only Mr Rodney is dissatisfied with the Hotel Licensing Authority regime and that he does not have wider support to create sufficient momentum for change. It also resents what it views as the Compass Point owner using his employees’ livelihoods as pawns or bargaining chips to get a response from the Government.

Tribune Business previously reported that Mr Rodney has a long-held belief that the Hotel Licensing Board’s annual inspections are “pointless”, and a “waste of Compass Point’s time” and Bahamian tax dollars. In effect, he sees the Board as an unnecessary layer of cost and bureaucracy that he and other resorts have to navigate each year.

This newspaper was also given more information about Mr Rodney’s concerns from a well-placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, who said: “They [the Hotel Licensing Board] tried to shut him down because a single tile was missing in the bathroom when Compass Point was doing renovations. They also forced him to place a ‘no lifeguard on duty’ sign on the beach.”

Mr Rodney on Friday said that he had investigated three US states, including California and Nevada, at Mr D’Aguilar’s behest and found that none required that resorts possess the equivalent of a Bahamian hotel licence or undergo an associated inspection.

He added that alternative plans have already been drawn up for the Compass Point site, which involve converting it into three private residences for himself and his family. “That’s what Mr D’Aguilar’s decision not to call me will bring about,” Mr Rodney added. “This decision that he’s backing me into benefits me financially. He’s forcing me to do something that benefits me financially.”

Mr Rodney acquired Compass Point in 2006. The property’s purchase from Island Outpost ended its two-year post-Hurricane Frances closure, although the iconic Compass Point Recording Studios were not included in the deal.

Mr Rodney is president of Detroit Forming Inc, a Detroit-based designer and manufacturer of rigid plastic packaging, a family-owned business that was started by his father in 1962.