Baha Mar will spend about $8 million on its Service and Training Academy to help prepare Bahamians for the 12,000 jobs projected to be created by the project, and for the ongoing training of staff across all the skill sets that the resort will require.
On the occasion of the historic groundbreaking ceremony for the $2.5 billion resort, Senior Vice President of Administration and External Relations at Baha Mar Robert Sands said the
$8 million is for the construction of the academy, as well as operational training and retraining once the academy is established. The academy represents Baha Mar’s commitment to ensuring staff are prepared to deliver the quality performance levels that will be expected of them.
“My biggest fear is as we get close to opening, I’m going to have to hire 5-or-6,000 people in a very short period of time, and we want to make sure people are prepared and ready for those positions,” said Don Robinson, Baha Mar president.
The academy will have to kick into gear long before those hires, however, and according to Sands, needs to be fully operational about three years prior to the opening of the resort, currently scheduled for the end of 2014. That timeline brings the launch of the training facility into the 2011 calender year.
