Atlantis resort will reopen in December 1 in a “bubble” whereby all of its guests will be tested for COVID-19 before they are brought to the resort via chartered aircraft, revealed the chief executive officer of Brookfield Asset Management, which owns Atlantis.
Bruce Flatt was speaking on the television program “Bloomberg Front Row” about the impact of COVID-19 on Brookfield’s many businesses, when he revealed that his company was able to negotiate with the government to allow the Paradise Island property to reopen under specific conditions.
“We still have businesses that aren’t open yet. We have hotels, it’s a small part of our business, but we have hotels that aren’t open but every day even for those, we’re figuring out ways to open them. For example, we own the Atlantis in The Bahamas and it closed. It’s 4,000 rooms on Paradise Island, it has its own island,” he said during the interview, which aired over the weekend.
“And we’ve now negotiated with the government of The Bahamas to have a bubble. We’re going to test everyone when they arrive, we’re going to charter planes and we’re flying people in starting December 1. So, we will be taking people there, they don’t have to quarantine at all going down. When they go back (to the United States or Canada), they will quarantine.”
In a letter to staff last week, Atlantis President and Managing Director Audrey Oswell confirmed that executives planned to open the resort in phases before 2021, but stopped short of providing further details, only saying the resort was preparing to welcome guests sometime in December.
Flatt said he believes the resort, which has been shuttered since March when the first emergency lockdown measures were implemented, will attract sufficient guests for a rebound in the near term.
“I think during the wintertime we’re going to have an amazing number of people that will want to come down there, because there aren’t that many options. So, we’ve negotiated that with the government and that’s allowed us to open up,” he said.
“So, when I started off by saying every day it gets a little bit better, three months ago I could imagine that. Six months ago we were shutting the place down, so we’re now planning on opening it up so that we can bring people in and we’ll rotate 4,000 rooms of people with the safety protocols and they won’t have to quarantine.”
Atlantis had previously intended to reopen on July 15 for the first time since the resort closed its doors in March, however, growing COVID-19 cases following the initial reopening of tourism on July 1 prompted the resort to push the date back to November.
At that time, the reopening was further delayed because of ever changing travel restrictions and continued increases in cases.
Atlantis is the single largest private employer in The Bahamas.
The post Brookfield CEO: Atlantis to reopen December 1 in a ‘bubble’ appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/brookfield-ceo-atlantis-to-reopen-december-1-in-a-bubble/
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