With the hotel industry benefitting from the large contributions made by stop-over visitors to the Bahamian economy, if this vital sector is to survive, a substantial partnership between hoteliers, the union and the Government must be maintained.
Giving a forecast for the hotel sector in 2003, Vice President and General Manager of the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino, Mr. Robert Sands, said one of the main challenges of the industry is to maintain and increase hotel occupancy levels while reducing costs to increase revenues.
Mr. Sands, who was a guest speaker at the annual Bahamas Business Outlook on Monday, said that even though the hotel occupancy levels for 2002 showed no appreciable improvement overall, there is room for optimism.
Furthermore, he said if there are no new significant terrorist attacks this year, then business outlook for 2003 may be good.
Mr. Sands also said that healthy occupancy rates during the holiday season was a great boost for the industry, nevertheless, hoteliers cannot be concerned by a false sense of security as ordinarily for the first quarter of the year, bookings come in slowly with only small increases in room rates.
According to statistics presented by Mr. Sands, there was a decrease of 6.1 percent in stop-over visitors and an increase of 7.4 percent in cruise visitors as compared with 2001.
In 2001, stopover visitors contributed $1.5 billion to the Bahamian economy, compared to almost $148 million spent by cruise visitors.
He said if The Bahamas is to succeed in tourism in a seemingly tough environment predicted for this year, then the country as a whole must entice clients to leave the relative security of their homes to travel abroad.
Additionally, he said visitors must be convinced to travel to one of our island destinations and once we succeed in attracting them, we must ensure that their vacation stay is so memorable that they encourage others to come back with them.
“Our visitors must be satisfied that their hotel experiences exceeded their expectations and that good value for money is had for all the elements which combine to make their stay a good one,” Mr. Sands said.
“It demands of us a concerted effort and the cultivation of a particular culture and sensitivity, which once acquired, has greater value to our promotional effort than money.”
A Senior Vice President of Ruffin Hotels (Bahamas) Ltd., Mr. Sands noted that a continued and increased investment in hotel properties and in staff development is very much a factor of the profitability of the hotel.
Moreover, he said the maintenance goes beyond the boundaries of individual properties into extensive and highly expensive environmental maintenance activity.
More importantly, there is a major concern that common standards have been slipping at the individual and societal level as some of our communities, resort areas and destinations do not reflect the posture adopted to market the country as a top-drawer, first class destination.
“We are all partners in the hotel and tourism industry and we all have a responsibility in making and keeping our resort areas up to standard and in keeping our hotels profitable,” he said.
Mr. Sands said to achieve profitability, one has to keep operating costs below operating expenditures – easy to say but not easy to do. Commonly considered operating costs include labour and employment benefits, utilities, and plant maintenance, consumable and cost of insurance.
He said labour and utility costs are amongst the greatest contributors to costs associated with hotel operation.
Therefore, it is vital for Labour to understand the dynamics of the economy, to maintain job security for largest number of hotel workers as opposed to increase remuneration and benefits for a decreasing amount of workers.
“Hotels and their related facilities are the largest employers in The Bahamas. The economic vibrancy of tourism is therefore critical to the economic prosperity and growth of The Bahamas’ economy,” he said.
“It is in the interest of us all to keep hotels profitable. We make substantial contributions to Government revenue and facilitate the creation of thousands of spin-off jobs. It is significant to note also that our sector is the most heavily taxed.”
Mr. Sands stated that another great concern is the number of visitor surveys, which do reflect the levels of satisfaction, which those in the industry hope to achieve.
He said between 10 percent and 30 percent of guests continue to believe that some aspects of our tourism product remains wanting. Whether it is the hotel rooms, restaurants, entertainment, attractions can be better, our people can be friendlier and that better value for money could be had.
The veteran hotelier said as an industry, “the hotel sector must recognise that it cannot rest on its laurels with the belief that more than 50 percent of guests believe that we meet or exceed their expectations.”
Continuing, he said this not good enough in order to sustain the rate of growth hoped to be achieved if the country is to remain ahead of the race.
“We must continue to strive to increase length-of-stay and expenditure with each visitor to our country, because we are competing both regionally and internationally with destinations equally determined to attract the dwindling number of persons now predisposed to vacation outside of their home countries.”
With this in mind, Mr. Sands advised that persons in the hotel sector must not overlook the importance of investment and reinvestment in hotel and public infrastructure, in human resource training, re-training in regular maintenance & upkeep, in product enhancement and in national tourism awareness.
He also stressed that every possible way must also be made to reduce the cost of hotel operation in The Bahamas.
Doing so, he said, would make the country attractive for investment and more viable for the industry.
By Lisa Albury, The Nassau Guardian
