Atlantis Mandara Spa To Remain In Operation

According to liquidator Robert Lazar of Steiner Spa Resorts Limited, which has over 50 Mandara Spa chains in the region, the wind-up pertains to operations outside of the luxury spa chain. Steiner opened the super-luxurious spa at the Atlantis resort in 2007.

“Those are just some corporate inactive entities that we’re just liquidating and they are unrelated to Mandara Spa at the Atlantis,” he told Guardian Business. “It’s nothing more than that… entities, unrelated to Mandara, that we had set up down there (and) are not using, so we decided to liquidate them.”

The resort operation, he quickly reassured, would remain unaffected by the liquidation.

It follows concerns expressed to Guardian Business on how the wind up would affect the jobs of the employees at the luxury resort. The concerns were sparked by an official notice last week that following a general meeting held on September 30, the Steiner Spa Resorts Limited would be wound up.

The notice comes as many employed Bahamians remain on edge over recent mass firings conducted not only throughout the hotel sector, but virtually all sectors of the economy. The concerns came even as Managing Director of Kerzner International Bahamas Ltd. George Markantonis assured no more terminations were planned, despite a slow September.

“We have an unpaid leave program which is mandatory for all non-union employees from my level down. When we do cuts we don’t just talk about here (Paradise Island) because this is an operation,” he said earlier. “We talk about what’s happening in our offices in Fort Lauderdale, our offices in London. So if you’re asking me have we planned some additional layoffs that we’re about to spring on the public in the fall, the answer is no.”

As the global economic crisis became pronounced and tourism fell off last fall, Kerzner International laid off approximately 800 people from its Paradise Island properties in at the end of 2008.

Hotels in New Providence and on Paradise Island are projecting low revenue in the month of November, even as they prepare for higher occupancy rates than those seen last year as the North American Thanksgiving travel season picks up.

“Projected hotel occupancies for November are slightly above last year,” Bahamas Hotel Association (BHA) President Robert Sands said in a statement sent to Guardian Business in an earlier interview. “While we expect higher occupancies, room revenue will be down.”

Source: The Nassau Guardian