-320 to go home
(Jamaica Gleaner) Forced to temporarily close the doors to one of his three Montego Bay resorts, Iberostar Rose Hall’s Managing Director Philipp Hofer said he had no option but to take the difficult decision to send 320 of his employees home.
Hofer, who heads Iberostar’s Rose Hall Beach & Spa Resort complex, said on Thursday that as of next Tuesday, the positions of all the staff who were employed at Rose Hall Beach Hotel One would be made redundant as a result of the worldwide economic challenges affecting his operation.
Hotel One is part of the resort complex which also includes Rose Hall Suites and Grand Hotel Rose Hall.
“We are currently running at 16 per cent occupancy level, and we see no improvements in forward bookings to minimise the losses,” Hofer said, adding that operational cost at the 366-room property was 40 per cent of the amount to run the two adjoining resorts.
“Electricity at Hotel One consumes 40 per cent of the electricity that the entire company uses,” he explained.
Cannot pay the bills
He noted that it had reached a stage where they could not pay their bills.
Guests who have already booked places at the Rose Hall Beach Hotel will have their stay upgraded to Iberostar Rose Hall Suites.
While Hofer said he had restrained from closing the resort, leaving two other properties open and more than 600 staff remaining in their jobs, the University and Allied Workers’ Union (UAWU) claimed the move was union busting.
“Had it not been (union busting), they would have come to discuss the issue with us,” argued Lambert Brown, the UAWU’s president.
“We would not be averse to temporary layoffs or rotation,” Brown explained.
On Thursday evening, however, Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett said stakeholders must at all times be careful about the demands they place on the tourism sector, especially at a time of global economic fragility.
Bartlett said in a release that while the temporary closure was unfortunate, it was understandable given the impact of the global economic crisis on tourist travel.
“While tourism arrivals are increasing, we need more than the 3.3 per cent growth which we are now experiencing to fill our hotel rooms at this time,” Bartlett said in a release. “The fact is that our room numbers have been growing, at a time when the world economy is in a downturn and most other tourism destinations have been hurting from serious declines in visitor arrivals.”
Efforts intensified
Bartlett said this was why the ministry had to intensify its marketing efforts and work to increase the number of air seats which would bring people to Jamaica.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure that we do not suffer from decline in our arrivals,” the minister said.
“I regard Iberostar’s action as a business decision which is based on the need for greater efficiencies in order to keep business going and minimise staff displacement.”
Among the marketing efforts Bartlett noted were the extensive promotional work done around the performance of Jamaican athletes at the just-concluded World Championships in Athletics in Berlin, Germany; efforts being made to boost the already buoyant Canadian market; and new initiatives in Latin America which are already showing results.
Others suffering
Despite the minister’s optimism however, checks made by The Gleaner have revealed that the majority of the island’s hotels are doing below average and, even though September and October are traditional slow months, the global crisis seems to have now reached the country full force.
The 1,000-room Grand Palladium Hotel is running an occupancy level of 15 per cent; Sandals Montego Bay is at 32 per cent; Grand Lido Negril – 19 per cent; Bahia Principe – 35 per cent; The Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall – 17 per cent; and Riu Palace – 38 per cent.
The only hotels that seem to be doing a little bit above par are Riu Montego Bay and Ocho Rios.
“People who are coming now are really on a budget, we have to be discounting up to 60 per cent,” said one hotelier.
