Baha Mar opens today

The first guests to drive up Baha Mar Resort’s sprawling and lush entryway are expected today, as the property opens its doors to visitors for the first time in nearly nine months.

Speaking of this long-awaited day, Baha Mar President Graeme Davis said while his expectations for bookings were not high given the continued rampant spread of COVID-19 in the resort’s key markets, he’s certain that guests will have an exceptional experience.

“Our guests with the additional space available due to the lower occupancy will have a tremendous amount of personal space to have an exceptional experience at Baha Mar. The pools will be open, the bars will be open, the beach, of course, the golf course, the tennis facility. Our new Mini Blue miniature golf course will be open tomorrow,” he said in an interview with Guardian Business yesterday.

“We have our top-class restaurants opening up as well as our more value-driven restaurants opening up, so we have an offering for all price points. The majority of our experiences, of course our casino, being opened and ready to go.”

Baha Mar is the latest of the major resorts in the country to reopen since the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to close in March.

The reopening of these properties is considered critical to the rejuvenation of the country’s tourism product and ultimately the economy, given that they are the drivers of the bulk of foreign arrivals to The Bahamas.

Much is depending on the successful reopening of Baha Mar and Atlantis, which reopened last week.

Davis said he’s satisfied so far with the growing interest in The Bahamas as a destination and Baha Mar so far, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are satisfied with the expectations that we have. We did not expect a tremendous amount of demand due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in our key markets. We do understand though that it takes time to build consumer confidence in the destination as well as our hotel; this is certainly an opportune time to open in the festive season and be ready to launch and build that consumer confidence for the winter and spring break season, which will be ahead of us,” he said.

“We don’t expect demand to increase rapidly based on what we’re seeing in our key markets, but we’re expecting that with the vaccine rolled out, with the added focus on mask wearing and physical distancing and sanitizing, that we will start to see numbers get under control as they have in The Bahamas in our key markets as well,” Davis added.

“And we should start to see demand pick up for the end of the first quarter and of course into the second quarter and beyond we should start to see some recovery. I don’t expect to see recovery until after the vaccine is fully rolled out and there is no more COVID-19, certainly in the Western Hemisphere, if not globally. I don’t think anybody can safely predict when that will be. I think there is a lot of speculation that in 2022 there will be significant demand for travel. There is COVID-19 fatigue, people are tired, there’s always a willingness to want to travel and a desire to reconnect with each other. And I think once it’s safe without question, demand will come back very quickly, because the fundamentals of the economy are still very strong and we look forward to that day.”

In the meantime, the 1,000-acre resort complex is pushing ahead to ensure that its guests and even more importantly, it’s nearly 1,800 associates that just returned to work, are safe with Baha Mar’s world-class safety protocols.

“Our associates are beyond excited to be opening tomorrow, as are we,” Davis said.

He added, “Everything we do revolves around ensuring that we do it safely, using our world-class COVID-19 protocols for bringing our associates back and opening tomorrow. To that point, we are testing every associate every week, we will have additional complimentary testing for our guests when they arrive tomorrow and we are excited to also be opening up to the community, for them to stay with us with complimentary rapid antigen testing on arrival if they would like to come and stay with us; or if they would like to just come and join us for dinner.”

Baha Mar announced last week that it will allow locals and non-registered guests to dine at any of its property’s restaurants as long as they show proof of a negative COVID-19 antigen test taken within five days of their restaurant reservation.

“We’ve always contemplated opening up to the local community. We wanted to make sure that first and foremost, we take care of our guests that are arriving, our international arrivals, to ensure that we could manage the protocols safely and effective. And knowing that we could do that well, we would then open up to the local community,” Davis said.

“So, we’re doing that immediately after we open, starting on Sunday with our restaurant reservations. Just so that we can ensure that the protocols that we do have, have been worked through and are very solid.”

Looking ahead to the future of tourism and hospitality in The Bahamas and around the world, Davis said the day will come again when travelers – instead of remaining in a “bubble” – will simply want to connect with their destinations.

“I believe that everyone will consciously think about their personal spaces. They will think about safety and the health aspects of travel. But I think more importantly, going forward, people will think about how they can connect with their families, their loved ones, with their friends,” he said.

“I think people will appreciate more of those personal connections and want to go to places that are easy to get to, that are safe to go to and have easy access to get back home if something were to happen. I think that will certainly shape and certainly present a boost to the Caribbean region for travel tourism, because it is close, it is easy access, it is safe. And certainly, as a warm weather destination, one of the top of my travel destinations for our key markets in the United States.

“And we’re working closely with our airline partners to ensure that the proper air capacity increases over the coming months as well. And they are certainly excited to see the demand starting to pick up, so they can have those flights back as well.”

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