Despite April 21st being confirmed as the date for the soft opening of the stalled multi-billion dollar Baha Mar Resort, officials have yet to confirm when the resort will begin taking reservations.
The Journal reached out to Robert Sands, Senior Vice President of Government and External Affairs to inquire about the activation of the reservation system, however he said he was unable to comment at this time.
Calls were also made to Baha Mar President Graeme Davis but they were unanswered up to press time.
Over the weekend, Mr. Davis acknowledged that his team has a huge obstacle to overcome when it comes to the notoriety that stalled multibillion dollar property has garnered over the past three years.
His comments came while as a guest on the Love 97/JCN talk show “Jones and Company”.
Mr. Davis said his team has a revamped marketing approach and although there has been some negative acclaim associated with the brand’s name, consumers tend to have “short term memory loss” surrounding delayed opens once an exceptional product is delivered.
“The brand has been developing over the past few years, the name recognition is out around the world, millions of dollars have been spent on marketing campaigns yet they didn’t get to the opening phase,” he said.
“Yes there were some guests that were disappointed and affected financially, so what we want to do is make sure we open up thoughtfully, to make sure we are creating an exceptional experience that we don’t have that mishap that happened in the past where it was a start stop where guests had their reservations cancelled.
“Certainly in the consumer facing world there is a short term memory when it comes to an opening that never happened,” Mr. Davis said.
Much has been made over the fact if two mega hotels can coexist on one island meaning Baha Mar and the Atlantis resort, Mr. Davis also made a point to note that Baha Mar is not expected to compete the with the Atlantis Paradise Island but the two companies have agreed to work together in order to expand the local market.
“Certainly meeting with the Atlantis executives (Howard Karawan) we both agree that it is important to grow the market, it’s important to go after the market in new destinations looking again in the southwest (Texas), looking at Latin America.
“We’re very encouraged to work closely with our competition to make sure we grow this market together, we don’t feel like we are going to be competing with Atlantis we think it is an incredible experience that they offer and have had incredible success over the past few years,” Mr. Davis said.
Originally, Baha Mar was to have five hotels, with the anchor property being the Baha Mar Casino Hotel. Now, Grand Hyatt is branding the anchor property in addition to the original space allotted for the Grand Hyatt, creating an 1,800-room hotel.
The 100,000-square-foot casino with 1,100 slot machines and 125 gaming table will debut this spring as training for casino workers began this weekend, as well as the resort announced the hire of its Casino Executive Management Team in the persons of Alex W. Pariente and John Zaremba .
