The Tribune

By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

An Abaco resort proprietor yesterday disclosed February bookings surged after a slow start to 2025 to give her confidence that a strong winter season will last into the summer months.

Molly McIntosh, the Bluff House Beach Resort and Marina’s owner, told Tribune Business that the Abaco resort has booked a number of spring-time weddings, boosting occupancy and allowing it to establish a new customer base. She explained that large events are not only profitable, but introduce new guests to the Family Islands who resorts and local businesses can entice into becoming repeat visitors.

“It was a little slower in January than we would have liked, but February picked up a lot of reservations. Normally, January is when we get a lot of reservations but this year, not so much. But February is going really well and it is really looking like it’s going to be a good spring and summer,” said Ms McIntosh.

“We’ve got about six or seven weddings coming through this Spring. So that’s always a good good revenue generator, and brings lots of people to The Bahamas that might not have otherwise come. You’ve got one person making a decision where 50 or 100 people are going for the wedding, and they bring a lot of people that are new customers to us. It’s great to bring in new business, and we have a chance to impress and get them to come back again.”

Ms McIntosh added that although forward bookings are strong for both Bluff House’s marina and rooms, private pilots have logged frequent complaints about the fee increases imposed on the sector in the 2024-2025 Budget.

She said several of her guests are members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), which represents between 300,000 to 400,000 private plane owners and pilots, and they expressed feeling “unappreciated” after the “unfair” fees were imposed.

Ms McIntosh said while boaters hardly complain about the $200 Immigration fee to extend visitor stays, private pilots have given more “push back” and one group cancelled their four-night, six-room stay due to the fees.

“We still get complaints [from boaters] from time to time. It’s not as much complaining as I’ve heard from the private pilots about the changes. I’m getting more push back from the private pilots than from the boaters,” said Ms McIntosh.

“They feel it’s unfair. They feel unappreciated, and there were lots of choices and places for them to go. So they were going to go to somewhere where they felt they were more fairly treated. I’ve had so many pilots that come in and say this because they’re all members of the AOPA. I had one group cancel on me, and they said they wrote a letter to the Ministry of Tourism. It was for six rooms for four nights.

“Private pilots are great business for the Out Islands, and even for Nassau and Freeport. People have these planes and they have to go somewhere. They have to fly them, and it’s beautiful over here and they love it. We just need to make sure they don’t feel that we’re taking advantage of them.”

Ms McIntosh said the resort is still experiencing electricity issues and outages lasting over 15 hours, and hopes Abaco will receive upgraded and improved infrastructure to accommodate growing visitor demand.

“We still have power problems. My power was off most of the day yesterday, went off at 7pm last night, and didn’t come on till 10.30 this morning. That the longest we’ve had in a while,” said Ms McIntosh.

“The BPL guys were working in the pouring rain. They do their best, and they communicated with me while they were getting it fixed. I’m not criticising them; I just wish we had a little better infrastructure so that we didn’t have to deal with this all the time.”