Hotel industry executives yesterday told The Tribune that the chaos caused by the failure of Nassau International Airport’s (NIA) radar system over the four days “couldn’t have happened at a worse time”, damaging their earnings and the Bahamas’ overall tourism reputation during one of the year’s busiest holiday periods.
Although Bahamian hotel operators were yesterday still assessing the damage done to their occupancy levels and revenues during the Christmas week – a period when most expect to be 100 per cent booked – the effect on airlift was set to have “some degree of an impact”.
Frank Comito, the Bahamas Hotel Association’s (BHA) executive vicepresident, said; “It’s unfortunate. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. We’re just hoping it can get operational – the back up and primary radar system – as quickly as possible.”
Michael Hooper, the British Colonial Hilton’s general manager, told The Tribune: “We had more than the average number of cancellations and no-shows yesterday [Monday]. We were still at 96 per cent occupancy, but we expected to be full.”
Mr Hooper said the British Colonial Hilton yesterday still had “a lot of arrivals yet to come in” when he spoke to this newspaper at around 4pm. Again, the hotel was expected to be at 100 per cent occupancy, but he added that the airlift woes could reduce this to possibly 90 per cent.
“We’re still very concerned,” Mr Wooper said.
The radar system was said to be back up and operating normally at NIA yesterday afternoon, having been down during the morning and on Monday, in addition to other problems experienced over the weekend. With the radar out of action, no inter-national flights could take-off from or land at NIA, bringing the flow of tourists into and out of New Providence to a virtual standstill.
An estimated 8,000-10,000 passengers were affected by the travel disruption, with some forced to sleep the night at NIA – an airport previously condemned by Kerzner International chairman, Sol Kerzner, as one of the world’s worst and totally out of step with the top-end nature of the Bahamian tourism product.
Sources told The Tribune that numerous passengers caught up in the chaos were saying that although their hotels and general Bahamian vacation had exceeded expectations, they were unlikely to return to this nation or recommend it to others because of the travel delays and disruption.
The events at the airport over the past weekend are likely to intensify pressure on the Government to conclude a management agreement for NIA with a private operating company as rapidly as possible.
One source, who requested anonymity, said of the weekend’s events: “It just reinforces the importance of having a wholly different approach to the way we manage things out there at the airport.”
Kerzner International, Baha Mar Development Company and the Bahamas Hotel Association (BHA) have been jointly lobbying the Government on the issue.
Ellison ‘Tommy’ Thompson, the Ministry of Tourism’s deputy director-general, told The Tribune earlier this month
that the government’s negotiating team were close to agreeing a management contract with YVRAS, the international airport management subsidiary of YVR, the Canadian company that operates Vancouver International Airport.
The talks between the two parties have dragged on for about a year, and almost broke down completely at one point when YVRAS threatened to walk away, believing they had a deal only for the Government to seek to re-negotiate it to the point where it was unviable economically.
However, they are still at the table, and The Tribune understands that one hold-up has been that the Government is reluctant to relinquish as much control as YVRAS wants.
The whole episode will also have an unwanted effect on the Bahamian hotel industry, the economy’s largest private sector employer, which is already struggling with burdens such as low productivity, high operating costs and the high electricity fuel surcharge.
In addition, the industry faces the prospect of new burdens such as the National Insurance Board NIB reforms, which recommend that hotels pay NIB contributions of 2 per cent on employee gratuities – they currently do not pay contributions on this. It is understood that the hotel sector fears this could wipe out a large chunk of their operating profits.
By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor
