The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

DOWNTOWN Nassau businesses yesterday lamented that the British Colonial Hilton’s imminent February 15 closure will result in lost trade for their enterprises.

George Mousis, the Athena Café’s general manager, told Tribune Business: “We get a lot of business from the hotel, from pilots stopping over to people coming in for lunch because it was such a short walk away.”

The British Colonial Hilton, largely regarded as the ‘anchor’ property for Bay Street, is set to close “indefinitely” on February 15 due to low occupancies and poor financial performance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit the corporate market it relies on most the hardest.

The closure date also coincides with the end of the resort’s agreement with Hilton for the latter to act as its flagship brand. The British Colonial is owned by China Construction America (CCA), the state-owned contractor that has also developed the adjacent $200m property, The Pointe, complete with a Margaritaville resort that is more suited to attract cruise and leisure tourists.

Wesley Ferguson, the Bahamas Taxi Cab Union’s (BTCU) president, added: “Our taxi drivers can easily integrate to another taxi stand, maybe downtown at the docks, to meet the cruise ships or maybe even the airport. This would only affect a minimum amount of taxi drivers anyway. We only have about 15 of them out at the British Colonial.

“This won’t have a real big effect. The Hilton wasn’t that busy. I don’t think the taxi drivers at the airport had that many fares there. So I don’t think it’s going to have a major effect. We will just miss it because it is the iconic British Colonial Hilton in the downtown area, but I am quite sure they will be back.”

Dwayne Higgs, WHIM Automotive’s general manager, added of the closure: “That was a surprise to me. That’s been around for a really long time. Not really sure from what I read, but it sounds like they just lost the Hilton brand.

“So I’m thinking The Pointe, which is owned by CCA, I’m thinking they’re just going to take that over and possibly just rebrand it under The Pointe. So it’s not the British Colonial closing down; it is just the Hilton brand that is not going to be operating in-country any more.”